2010, as sporting fans dwelling in the more wintry regions of the world know, is the year of the Winter Olympics. Though internationally less popular than its summer counterpart due to a variety of (probably socioeconomic) reasons, the Winter Olympics nevertheless attracts a sizeable number of countries who wish to whet their appetites for courting frostbite and hypothermia.

Despite their absence from major sporting events on the international stage, North Korea will be among the number of countries who have qualified to send their athletes to Vancouver next February. At the recent Nebelhorn Trophy in Oberstdorf, Germany, a North Korean figure skater–Song Chol Ri–made a rare appearance at the event and placed eleventh place overall, which was enough to qualify for a berth in the men’s figure skating event at the Olympics for North Korea.  For a skater who rarely has the opportunity to compete internationally (his last event was the Asian Winter Games in 2007), Ri’s eleventh-place finish was a surprisingly good result. With his placement at Nebelhorn, Ri will become only the second skater (after Kim Yong Suk in 2006) ever to represent North Korea at the Olympic Games.

As Yoo Gwan Hee notes in his article about figure skating in North Korea, the situation for figure skaters in North Korea is rather different than one might encounter in most countries. Athletes train in group-based environments, which often include ideological elements and self-criticism. Also,  North Korea rarely sends its skaters to international events, hence the low placements of North Korean skaters on the International Skating Union’s official rankings. In a sport like figure skating, where reputation plays a role in judging despite all protests to the contrary, this tends to negatively affect the placing of North Korean skaters when they skate in internationally-judged events. Factors such as these dimish the likelihood that there would be a North Korean counterpart to the famous South Korean skater Yu-Na Kim, who is the incumbent ladies’ world champion and a heavy favourite for Olympic gold come February.

However, the potential is still there. Youtube has a small number of videos of North Korean figure skating, which provides a rare peek at the state of the sport in the country. Here is Ri’s long program at the Nebelhorn Trophy:

Kim Yong Suk at the 2006 Olympic Games (with some helpful English commentary):

A rare video of a North Korean figure skating event, the International Figure Skating Festival for the Paektusan Cup:

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