THE REAL OLYMPIC DRAMA

ALL OLYMPIC GAMES BECOME a platform for causes bigger than the events they showcase. But the run-up to the 2018 Winter Olympics threatened to overshadow anything set to take place on the snow and ice in Pyeong-Chang, South Korea. The location of the global gathering, barely 50 miles from the heavily armed demilitarized zone that marks the border with North Korea, guaranteed that the rogue state and the nuclear ambitions of its unpredictable leader would cast a fraught shadow over the action. For a while, it did.

The flourish of eleventh-hour diplomacy, during which North Korea sent a delegation of 22 athletes, 229 cheerleaders and leader Kim Jong Un’s sister Kim Yo Jong to the Games and the two nations marched as one in the opening ceremony, was as controversial as it was conciliatory. U.S. Vice President Mike Pence remained seated as the Korean athletes entered the stadium. Spectators debated whether the hundreds of red-snowsuit-clad North Korean cheerleaders marked a historic opening—or canny propaganda from an oppressive regime.

But then, finally, the Games began. And as if by command, the drama of cable news gave way to the joy of the