Politics the most-watched event at Winter Games

Pyeongchang, South Korea, bid farewell this past weekend to a Winter Olympics that will be remembered as much for its political milestones as its athletic feats. International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach said at the closing ceremony Sunday night that the joint Koreas team, which marched united in the opening ceremony and competed together in some events, was a beacon for a troubled world. “With your joint march you have shared your faith in a peaceful future with all of us,” he said. North and South Korea both expressed a desire for more cooperation on their beleaguered peninsula, but the United States, one of the South’s most vital allies, remains skeptical. Vice President Mike Pence and Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter, who attended the opening and closing ceremonies, respectively, emphasized at the games the United States’ demand that North Korea dismantle its nuclear weapons program. From South Korea on Sunday, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said President Donald Trump remains committed to achieving the “complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization” of the peninsula. The United States ended the athletic competition with a disappointing showing, winning just 23 medals—far short of the target of 37 the U.S. Olympic Committee set and even beneath its minimum goal of 25. Norway led the pack with 39 total medals, ahead of Germany with 31, Canada with 29, and then the United States. Olympic athletes from Russia, who were allowed to compete under strict scrutiny because of the country’s history of doping, came away with 17 medals. The Russian athletes had hoped the IOC would reinstate their country and allow them to march under Russia’s flag at the closing ceremony, but two positive drug tests from team members dashed those hopes. Bach said the IOC does plan to renew Russia’s Olympic privileges soon. And the fun is not entirely over in Pyeongchang: The Paralympic Games will run from March 9 to 18 in the same facilities that hosted the Winter Olympics.