Turning our focus to the visiting cheerleaders.
We're seeing them in the South for the first
time in well over a decade.
Other than celebrating the spirit of the games
together, their mission is to rally athletes
of both Koreas during the competitions.
Park Hee-jun gets us better acquainted with
this group... mostly attractive women in their
20s.
One after another, they marched, wearing a
red coat and dark fur hat,...
and on their chests, the North Korean flag.
These are the 229 North Korean cheerleaders
who crossed the Demilitarized Zone Wednesday,...
to root for both South and North Korean athletes
during the PyeongChang Winter Olympics.
While passing through immigration control,...
they greeted journalists with bright smiles.
"It's nice to meet you."
Most of them appeared to be in their early
20s.
They carried both traditional and Western
style musical instruments, and when asked
by journalists about their repertoire, they
gave a simple but concise answer.
"You'll know when you see it."
This marks the fourth occasion for the North
Korean cheerleading squad, popularly known
as the "army of beauties", to visit South
Korea.
Their last appearance in the South was 13
years ago during the 2005 Asian Athletics
Championships.
North Korea did not always send young women
to cheer at global sports events.
For the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Pyongyang sent
a mixed group of middle-aged men and women--
and for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa,
the regime sent a team of one hundred male
cheerleaders who were estimated to be in their
their 40s and 50s.
Although only a handful of North Korean athletes
are competing in PyeongChang,...the cheerleading
squad is also expected to perform for the
unified women's ice hockey team, as well as
South Korean athletes throughout the games.
Park Hee-jun, Arirang News.
