North Korea's Olympic Hopefuls Include A Pair Of Figure Skaters
Ryom Tae Ok and Kim Ju Sik of North Korea perform during their pairs short program in Oberstdorf, Germany, in September.
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When South Korea hosts the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang next month, a combined North Korea-South Korea women’s hockey team — the countries’ first-ever joint team — will attract a lot of attention. So will the sight of athletes from the two Koreas, divided for some 70 years, marching together in the opening ceremony on Feb. 9.
But even before recent border negotiations led to these shows of unity, the only North Korean athletes who qualified for the games — a figure skating pair — were already making headlines. With International Olympic Committee approval, they will likely compete in Pyeongchang, despite missing a registration deadline.
Most North Koreans are unable to leave the totalitarian country, but skaters Ryom Tae Ok, 18, and Kim Ju Sik, 25, have competed around the world. Last year in Japan, they skated their way to a bronze medal at the Asian Games. They also competed in last year’s World Figure Skating Championships in Helsinki. And in Germany, they placed sixth in an event that qualified them for the Winter Olympics.
“They were smiling and hugging and celebrating,” says Jun Michael Park, a Seoul-based photojournalist who was shooting images at the qualifying event for The New York Times. “It was really kind of touching to see those kinds of human interactions.”
When the duo gave a press conference and no translators were available, Jun was thrust into the role of simultaneous interpreter.
“I was really nervous just coming into contact with the North Koreans because I’m not allowed, technically,” Jun said.
South Koreans are forbidden by their government to even place phone calls to North Korea because of a Cold War-era law that is still on the books. But they, and now the rest of the world, are paying attention to this pair.
Few details are available about their personal lives.
“It’s almost impossible for people outside the country to know how they grew up as athletes or about how the North Korean infrastructure is supporting the athletes,” says Seong Moon-jeong, a researcher who studies inter-Korean sports at South Korea’s Institute of Sport Science and briefed South Korean diplomats ahead of the latest talks with North Koreans about the Olympics.
“Pair figure skating became huge in North Korea ever since Kim Jong Un came into power. In North Korea, the sports the leader is interested in get a lot of attention and support,” Seong says.
This weekend, the International Olympic Committee is meeting near Geneva to decide whether Ryom and Kim can compete in next month’s games. Photographer Jun, a believer in sports diplomacy, says he is rooting for them.
“You know, there should be more interactions, more human interactions. And maybe that will lead to better understanding,” he says.
As he translated the North Koreans’ words into English for throngs of press in Germany last year, he could hear differences — reflecting the division of the Korean Peninsula — come through in their vocabulary.
“I think their form of the Korean language is maybe a little bit more pure. In South Korea, we have lot of English words or foreign words that we use without even thinking about,” Jun explains.
The regime will direct how much foreign exposure North Koreans will get at the Olympics. Historically, Pyongyang has used international showcases as propaganda opportunities.
But Seong, the sports researcher, says any cultural exchange is good for the North Korean people. With it, they will “have the international viewpoint that they cannot get otherwise,” Seong says.
In one way, the North Korean figure skaters are already showing international savvy. Their short program is set to music by the Beatles. The song’s opening line: “I read the news today, oh boy.”
NPR Seoul producer Se Eun Gong contributed to this story.
North And South Korea's Warm Relations Over Ice Hockey
When North and South Korean athletes march out to the opening ceremony at next month’s Winter Olympics, they’ll do so under a single flag. And the two nations will field a women’s ice hockey team together as well.
It’s a big diplomatic step, but as CNN reports, not everyone is excited about the development.
Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono called on the international community to be clear-eyed about North Korea’s motivations for participating in the talks, which have been hailed by some as the most significant thaw in ties in years.
“I believe that North Korea wants to buy some time to continue their nuclear and missile programs,” Kono said at the meeting. “It’s not the time to ease pressure towards North Korea.”
North And South Korea Find Common Ground For Pyeongchang Winter Olympics
North and South Korea will form a unified woman’s hockey team and will march together in the opening ceremony at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.
DAVID GREENE, HOST:
We have news of a breakthrough in relations between North and South Korea – at least a breakthrough of a sort. The two governments have agreed to terms that will have their respective Olympic teams marching together in next month’s opening ceremonies at the Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea. NPR’s Elise Hu is in Seoul and is on the line. Hey, Elise.
ELISE HU, BYLINE: Hey, there.
GREENE: So what have they agreed to here?
HU: Well, the two Koreas are going to form their first joint Olympic team. It’s going to be the women’s ice hockey team that plays in Pyeongchang, which is a South Korean resort city that’s going to be hosting the games next month. Their athletes are also going to be marching together during the opening ceremony. That hasn’t happened since the year 2000 in Sydney when the two Koreas marched together. So a couple items here hammered out in the third talks in ten days between North and South Korea that has really sort of cooled down some tensions that had really been ratcheting all of last year.
GREENE: Now it’s an interesting reminder that there is some precedent for this, at least within the last two decades. This is not, you know, the first time ever. But you say cooling down the tensions. So is it an exaggeration to call this a breakthrough in relations?
HU: The fact that they’re talking at all is considered significant considering the two Koreas hadn’t. There had been a freeze for two years prior to about last week when the inter-Korean talks began again in earnest in order to make these agreements about the Olympics. But critically, the two Koreas are not talking about security issues – that is this question of North Korea’s increasing nuclear and missile capabilities. And so there’s no breakthroughs on that front.
But generally, it is seen as something of a positive when the two countries are talking because – and then they’re also reopening some hotlines and some ways to communicate because this always helps sort of sort out any miscommunication or misreading of things when things are tense.
GREENE: So it’s been so cool that just opening lines of communication and just having a way to avoid some sort of miscommunication leading to something catastrophic – I mean, that is seen as progress. We just don’t know how far this is going to go.
HU: That’s right. I mean, South Korea has been committed to trying to get to denuclearization eventually but is using this Olympic level of conversation and show of unity as an entree to that. North Korea, on the other hand, says it doesn’t want to talk about its nuclear capabilities at all, and that’s off the table. So that’s going to be the hard part of this relationship. But this is what South Korea considers an opening – a beginning.
GREENE: Do South Koreans – people you talk to in Seoul, on the streets – do they want their athletes to be marching side by side with the North Korean team?
HU: Well, as I mentioned, this isn’t the first time.
GREENE: Right.
HU: The two Koreas have done this during the Asian Games previously. The last time the two Koreas have marched together was during the 2007 Asian Games – and then, you know, prior to that, another Olympics event. So the South Koreans are generally happy to see that. Older Koreans that remember the peninsula unified tend to be very supportive of this notion in general. But there are going to be some mixed opinions about this especially when it comes to this hockey team because, here in local media, there’s already talk that the South Koreans think it’s unfair that suddenly the North Koreans are joining with the South’s players that have been training for so long.
GREENE: Yeah, I mean, you change a team totally just within such a short period of time before the Olympics. It has to make a difference.
HU: Exactly.
GREENE: NPR’s Elise Hu speaking to us from Seoul, South Korea. Elise, thanks.
HU: You’re welcome.
(SOUNDBITE OF ODDISEE SONG “AFTER THOUGHTS)
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Banana Drama Gets Much Attention At Australian Open
CoCo Vandeweghe was fined by a referee for refusing to take to the court before she had a chance to eat her banana. Denis Shapovalov could not seem to peel a banana right during a break in his match.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Good morning. I’m Rachel Martin. Now to the drama of this year’s Australian Open over bananas – there was CoCo Vandeweghe, who was fined by a referee for refusing to take to the court before she had a chance to eat her banana. The best, though, is Denis Shapovalov. For whatever reason, he could not seem to peel a banana right during a break in his match. A video shows him getting exasperated, even throwing one of the bananas on the ground. Finally, one more go at it – and, yes, he gets the banana open, complete with an arm pump of victory. It’s MORNING EDITION.
Copyright © 2018 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
For Once, The Minnesota Vikings Could Be A Team Of Destiny
The NFL team that could never catch a playoff break finally got one. In their NFC Divisional Round matchup, the Minnesota Vikings pulled off a miracle win against the New Orleans Saints. NPR’s Kelly McEvers speaks with Ben Goessling, who covers the team for the Star Tribune.
'Whoa, Nelly!' Keith Jackson, Voice Of College Football, Dies At 89
Keith Jackson, the voice of college football for generations died on Friday at the age of 89. In 2014, he attended the 66th Annual DGA Awards Dinner in Los Angeles.
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Richard Shotwell/Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP
Keith Jackson was one of sports’ great voices, and one of its most popular play-by-play announcers. He was considered the voice of college football by several generations or watchers.
Jackson died Friday. He was 89.
He began calling college football games for ABC Sports when it acquired the broadcast rights for NCAA football in 1966.
He also worked NFL and NBA games, World Series, Winter and Summer Olympics and auto racing. For the job, he traveled to 31 countries for ABC’s Wide World of Sports.
Jackson announced he would retire from college football play-by-play after the 1998 season but ended up continuing with ABC Sports, in 1999. He retired for good in May 2006.
ESPN, which consolidated with ABC sports, announced Jackson’s death Friday. The sports network highlighted Jackson’s many broadcasting accomplishments:
“Jackson got his start on the radio in 1952, broadcasting Washington State games, but went on to provide the national television soundtrack for the biggest games in the most storied stadiums. His colorful expressions — ‘Whoa, Nellie’ and ‘Big Uglies’ among the many — became part of the college football lexicon.
He was credited with nicknaming the Rose Bowl ‘The Granddaddy of Them All’ and Michigan’s stadium ‘The Big House.’
Jackson was the first play-by-play voice of Monday Night Football when the program debuted in 1970. He called Bucky Dent’s home run against the Red Sox in 1978 as well as Reggie Jackson’s three-homer game in the 1977 World Series.
He covered the 1972 Olympics where Mark Spitz won seven gold medals.
In 1999, Jackson was awarded the National Football Foundation and Hall of Fame Gold Medal — its highest honor — and named to the Rose Bowl Hall of Fame, the first broadcaster accorded those distinguished honors.”
Jackson’s death comes three weeks after another sportscasting legend, Dick Enberg, died at age 82.
Sports Announcer Keith Jackson Dies At 89
Sports announcer Keith Jackson, most famous for calling college football games, has died at the age of 89.
It May Look The Same, But Olympic Figure Skating Will Sound Different In 2018
Jason Brown competed in the men’s short program during the 2018 U.S. Figure Skating Championships in San Jose, Calif., with a song from Hamilton, the musical.
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Matthew Stockman/Getty Images
During the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics, figure skaters will still dazzle audiences with triple axles and quadruple salchows and routines presented with elegance.
But this year the sport might sound different: Pyeongchang will be the first Olympics where skaters in the men’s, women’s and pairs categories can use vocal music in their routines.
The change isn’t new; the International Skating Union voted on the issue in 2012. But the vote included a provision that the change would take place in the 2014-15 season — after the Sochi Olympics finished.
The decision came as the governing body hopes to reach a wider audience — and after the U.S. Championships it seems like that may be working.
At the U.S. National Championships in San Jose, Calif., skater Jimmy Ma started his short program routine with music that left the commentators disagreeing about what genre it was. Then about halfway through, the bass dropped and Lil Jon’s voice belted out “turn down for what?” That’s when the crowd went crazy.
Audiences should expect to see more routines set to music with lyrics, be it from a rapper like Lil Jon or one of the many hits from Hamilton, USA Today sportsreporter Maggie Hendricks told All Things Considered host Kelly McEvers, adding that it makes for fun, engaging moments on the ice.
“And why not? Figure skating should be fun,” she said.
By allowing music with vocals, Hendricks says the audience can get to know the skaters in more ways than before, pointing out that for Ma chose a piece a very different piece, a composition by Sergei Rachmaninoff, for his long program.
“So, you know, we have this balance of skater and learning about who they are in ways that we never could when you were having lyricless music or just classical pieces or opera pieces,” she says. “You’re just getting this whole new side of them.”
This is definitely the case with one of Hendricks’ favorite skating performances to vocal music: Last year Yuzuru Hanyu, the reigning world champion and Olympic champion, chose to perform “Let’s Go Crazy” by Prince at the International Skating Union’s Grand Prix in 2016.
“He’s one of the best skaters to ever walk this earth,” she says. “He has very much a rock star swagger. In Japan, he is a rock star. The way he brings the spins, you start to see Prince’s music happening on the ice when you see Yuzuru Hanyu skate to it. … And even at one point, he sort of takes his leg behind his head and plays it like he’s playing a guitar.”
Though many performances involving vocal music were a hit, Hendricks says sometimes they don’t work out so well.
“Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir are Canadian figure skaters … an amazing pair, but in their short program they have — sandwiched between ‘Oye Como Va’ and ‘Sympathy For The Devil,’ — ‘Hotel California’ by The Eagles,” Hendricks says. “It’s just so disappointing.”
However, Ma’s performance and others’, including Jason Brown’s and Bradie Tennell’s, did catch the attention of some who expressed their approval of the policy change on Twitter.
Watching US Figure Skating Championships – did @ma_jimmy just skate to “Turn Down for What”? Yes! Dude, that’s what sport needs. Bravo!
— Chris Ciborowski (@chrisciborowski) January 5, 2018
Thank you Jimmy Ma to choose a mashup of house music and Lil’ Jon’s Turn Down for What as your short program. Tired of all these classical music that everyone chooses. #USChamps2018@USFigureSkating
— Jennifer Nolos (@jnolos0708) January 5, 2018
Jimmy Ma is having a blast skating to DJ Snake and so am I watching it. The bass drop and then going into Turn Down for What after unzipping his pleather jacket. I am dead.
— Hannah Stuart (@HockeywthHannah) January 5, 2018
“When a figure skating program goes viral, there’s somebody watching that somewhere and saying, ‘hey, maybe I can try figure skating,’ And that is a huge part of the Olympics … every sport gets a little bump,” Hendricks says. “It gets some people interested in it and trying it, because they’ve saw it and they saw something in it.
“I don’t know if all of the young kids out there would have necessarily seen something of themselves in the Rachmaninoff, but they sure as heck would see it in the Lil Jon version.”
Saturday Sports: North Korea At The Winter Olympics
North and South Korea are discussing details of the North’s participation in the Winter Olympics.
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
And now it’s time for sports.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
SIMON: The Winter Olympics open in Pyeongchang next month. That city in South Korea will host athletes from around the world, including, perhaps most unexpectedly, North Korea. And that has Olympic planners scrambling. NPR sports correspondent Tom Goldman joins us. Tom, thanks so much for being with us.
TOM GOLDMAN, BYLINE: Always a pleasure, Scott.
SIMON: My pleasure, Tom.
GOLDMAN: (Laughter).
SIMON: So the – all of our – let me take a vote. It’s very close.
GOLDMAN: (Laughter).
SIMON: So the IOC is meeting soon to talk about ground rules about including North Korea. What are some of the details they have to hash out?
GOLDMAN: Well, they have to decide which athletes and officials from North Korea will take part. All the deadlines for registration have passed. So far, only a pairs figure skating team is qualified. Now, South Korea reportedly asked North Korea to join forces in women’s hockey, so there could be other athletes added. But the IOC has to be careful because other countries who haven’t had teams or athletes qualify could say, hey, what about us? And then, potentially, you’ve got issues. And we don’t want issues.
The IOC also has to figure out the official protocol with flags and anthems. Will the two Koreas march together in the opening ceremony with a unified flag as they did several times at the Olympics in the early 2000s? And as far as an anthem, Scott, chances are we won’t be hearing the North Korean national anthem played during the medal ceremony, at least. North Korea has only won two medals at the Winter Olympics in 1964 and ’92. So the Winter Games are not a strong suit.
SIMON: Tom, I’m sorry – total theoretical question. Is there anything in the rules that would prevent, like, in the Winter Olympics the United States from getting together with Switzerland and saying, let’s you and us be a team together (laughter)?
GOLDMAN: I’m going to have to check on that. That’s interesting, though (laughter).
SIMON: All right. We have some games coming up here. Philadelphia Eagles play the Atlanta Falcons tonight in the National Football Conference playoffs. Falcons – a wonderful team. But they have to play with the memory of maybe the most ignominious collapse in Super Bowl history last year. The Eagles have had a terrific season. But…
GOLDMAN: But they’re playing without their great, young quarterback Carson Wentz. He injured his knee late in the regular season. And largely because of that, the Eagles are the first team to start the playoffs as a No. 1 seed and as an underdog in their home stadium. Talk about ignominious.
SIMON: Oh, my.
GOLDMAN: Obviously, that’s not playing well with the Eagles or their infamous fans, who are firstly…
SIMON: They’re going to take it out on Santa Claus again, aren’t they?
GOLDMAN: They’re going to – yeah. Yeah. They are fiercely loyal. They are mean. They pelted Santa Claus in a 1960s game. And they pelted opposing players with worse things. And they are incredibly pessimistic. When Wentz went down, the reaction was a combination of oh, no and, of course we lost our quarterback at a critical part of the season. So they should be happy today because Philly’s got a great defense, a strong running attack on offense. And if Wentz’s backup quarterback Nick Foles, who’s been inconsistent, can be the good Nick Foles, the No. 1 seed should march on.
SIMON: In the AFC, we have the Tennessee Titans versus the New England Patriots, the reigning world champions.
GOLDMAN: Yes. Much different fan base, of course, in New England. There’s an expectation of all things great, even though the Patriots have been going through a controversy of late with tales of a rift between head coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady. New England should be fine against the Titans, who have nothing to lose and probably will. Tom Brady is out to prove that 40-year-old quarterbacks can win Super Bowls.
SIMON: But, you know, I read something this week. He and Gisele Bundchen – am I pronouncing that correctly?
GOLDMAN: Very well.
SIMON: Some kind of film coming out in which Gisele says that, I know I am Tom’s second love. Football is his first love. Nothing has persuaded me more that Tom Brady has taken too many hits in the head if Gisele Bundchen is his second love.
GOLDMAN: (Laughter). Dear me.
SIMON: All right. LaMarcus Aldridge from the San Antonio Spurs – speaking of love – a nice story with his coach. Do we have time for that? Yes. I think we do.
GOLDMAN: Interesting story. The Spurs head coach, Gregg Popovich, revealed Aldridge wasn’t happy and asked to be traded before the season. In his 20-plus years coaching, Popovich said he’d never had a player say that. So Popovich said he and Aldridge had some dinners and meetings, and they laughed. And after all that, Popovich understood he was partly at fault. He was, in his words, totally overcoaching his player. Popovich said he took care of it. We’re assuming that means he backed off. And Aldridge is playing really well. Here’s the best coach in the NBA, one of the best in all of…
SIMON: Yeah.
GOLDMAN: …Major pro sports, Scott, willing to be honest, self-aware and humble. A sports story that reminds us what good leadership can be.
SIMON: Yeah. Tom Goldman, thanks so much.
GOLDMAN: You’re welcome.
Copyright © 2018 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by Verb8tm, Inc., an NPR contractor, and produced using a proprietary transcription process developed with NPR. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
With One Billboard Inside Tuscaloosa, Ala., UCF Fans Drum Up A Little Drama
The University of Central Florida’s Dredrick Snelson gets a lift after a touchdown against Auburn in the Peach Bowl earlier this month. Not pictured: the Alabama Crimson Tide, targets of a trolling campaign by some very determined UCF fans.
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As you may have heard, the Alabama Crimson Tide just won the national college football championship. Again. In a feat of near-Groundhog Day repetition, the program has now taken home a whopping five of the past nine titles.
As you may not have heard, the University of Central Florida Knights also won the national championship … according to UCF fans, at least.
The team finished its season with a perfect record, unlike Alabama, but because its opponents were deemed too weak, the school missed the playoff to decide the official national champion. So instead, UCF went to the Peach Bowl and beat Auburn, the one team that beat Alabama all year.
By the little-known transitive property of college football, that means UCF won the title. Or something.
alabama is ‘national champs’
but they lost a gameUCF is ‘national champs’
but they didn’t lose all seasonalabama lost to auburn
UCF beat auburnUCF is the National Champion
— UCF probz ? (@ucf_problems) January 9, 2018
Anyway, that was enough for Florida Gov. Rick Scott, who declared them national champions by official proclamation. It was enough for UCF’s athletic director, too: Danny White confirmed that the school was paying the team’s assistant coaches bonuses for winning the title. (Head coach Scott Frost had already gotten all the bonuses he was contractually allowed, apparently.)
Some UCF fans, however, want more: They want to see their squad actually play the Crimson Tide. And they laid down cash in order to lay down their gauntlet.
Here’s the billboard now perched in Tuscaloosa, Ala., proud home of the Crimson Tide:
UCF with a message for @AlabamaFTBL on McFarland Blvd. in Tuscaloosa. @BamaOnLine247@Tide1029fmpic.twitter.com/J1ijRMywWq
— Travis Reier (@travisreier) January 10, 2018
“Congratulations!” it reads. “How about a home & home series with UCF?”
Now, it should be noted: The chances this will happen — this year or any year — teeter somewhere between slim and none. But that didn’t stop 37 UCF fans from pooling $1,665 on GoFundMe for the billboard, according to ESPN.
“We felt like this year’s team could run with anyone in the country, and the Peach Bowl win [over Auburn] proved that,” said Sean Barakett, who says he contributed $100, told the network. “All we needed was a chance to play harder opponents.”
They may be waiting a while before they get their response.