North Korea committed Tuesday to send a delegation to the 2018 Winter Games in South Korea next month and although it remains unclear how many athletes the North will send, they face long odds of making an appearance on the podium.
The rival Koreas took steps toward reducing their bitter animosity during rare talks as North Korea agreed to attend the PyeongChang Games, hold talks on lowering tension along their border and reopen a military hotline.
The meeting, the first of its kind in about two years, was held at the Peace House on the South side of the Panmunjom truce village which lies between the North and the South.
“We came to this meeting with the thought of giving our brethren, who have high hopes for this dialogue, invaluable results as the first present of the year,” Ri Son Gwon, North Korea’s chief negotiator said.
WATCH: North Korea opens hotline to South over Pyeongchang games
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) welcomed the news of the North’s planned participation next month.
“These proposals mark a great step forward in the Olympic spirit,” IOC president Thomas Bach said in a statement.
The North only has two athletes, pair figure skaters Ryom Tae-ok and Kim Ju-sik, who had qualified for the Winter Games, but North Korea failed to register the pair before an Oct. 30 deadline.
North Korea has only been to the podium twice at the Winter Games during eight appearances, once in 1964 and again in 1994.
Here’s a look at some notable moments for North Korea at the Olympics.
1964 Innsbruck Winter Games
North Korea appeared on the podium for the first time during the Winter Games in Austria. Haw-Han Pil captured silver in the women’s 300M speed skating event, with a final time of 5:15.5.
1992 Albertville Winter Games
The North captured a bronze medal during the debut of short-track speed skating at the Winter Games in France. Hwang Ok-Sil placed third in the women’s 500M with a time of 47.23.
The North skipped the 1968, 1976, 1980, 1994, 2002 and the 2014 Winter Games.
1972 Munich Summer Games
North captured its first gold medal at the Summer Games in Germany. Ho-Jun Li beat Victor Auer of the U.S. by one point to capture gold in the 50M rifle prone shooting event. The North took home a total of five medals at those Games.
1988 Seoul Summer Games
North Korea boycotted the Summer Games in South Korea. A year earlier, a South Korean passenger plane exploded, killing all 115 people aboard, and a captured North Korean agent told South Korean investigators that she bombed the jetliner at the order of North Korean leaders who wanted to disrupt the Seoul Games.
2000 Sydney Summer Games
Athletes of the Koreas march together under a “unification flag” depicting their peninsula during the opening and closing ceremonies of the Sydney Olympics. It was the Koreas’ first such parade since their 1945 division. The North captured a silver and three bronze medals at the Games.
The Koreas continued the tradition of marching under the “unification flag” for both 2004 Athens Summer Games and the 2006 Turin Winter Olympics.
2016 Rio Summer Games
The Koreas made headlines after 17-year-old South Korean gymnast Lee Eun Ju took a selfie with North Korea’s Hong Un Jong as they trained for competition. The IOC president called the interaction a “great gesture.”
–with files from the Associated Press
Comments