Security is a top concern at every Olympics, where athletes and fans in scattered venues can be difficult to protect. But rarely do they take place in the shadow of a nuclear standoff, as is the case with the Winter Games that open next week here in South Korea.
Nearly 3,000 athletes from 92 nations and 100,000 spectators per day are expected to converge on the area around Pyeongchang, 50 miles from the North Korean border, for what organizers say will be the largest-ever Winter Games. The South has mobilized tens of thousands of security personnel — including 50,000 soldiers — in what may be the most militarized security force in Olympic history.
A last-minute diplomatic breakthrough in which North Korea agreed to participate in the Games has pushed fears of worst-case scenarios into the background, at least for now. But the North remains the most unpredictable factor in security arrangements, because it has a history of engaging in violence when South Korea hosts international sports events.
The arrival on Thursday of a delegation of North Korean athletes — part of a larger contingent of around 500 athletes, officials and performers — raises a separate set of security challenges, including protecting them from attacks by extremists in South Korea.
Organizers have long feared that the North might test a missile or nuclear weapon during the Games, perhaps even provoking a chain reaction of escalations leading to war. Such worries have subsided since the January deal, in which the two Koreas agreed to march under one flag in the opening ceremony.
But there are still suspicions about the North’s intentions.
“North Korea will cause trouble one way or another in order to interrupt the successful completion of the Games,” said Yoo Dong-ryul, the head of the Korea Institute of Liberal Democracy in Seoul. “In all the years the Kim dynasty has been in power, North Korea has never once properly cooperated with South Korea.”
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