2018 Winter Olympics

On the 9th of February, the opening ceremony of the 2018 Winter Olympics will take place in Pyeongchang, South Korea. For the following two weeks, athletes from all over the world will compete in figure skating, skiing, snowboarding, hockey and many more winter sports. The games will end on February 25 when the closing ceremony takes place.

With just months left until the games, concerns over the security situation are casting a shadow over the games. Austria, Germany, and France have all threatened to boycott the games if the security situation worsens and the security of their athletes are no longer guaranteed. With Pyeongchang only being 50 miles from the North Korean border high the tensions are high. The displaced of North Korea's nuclear and missile capability over the summer is not helping

The absence of Austria, Germany and other leading winter sports powers would be a hammer blow to the Pyeongchang Games. Austria alone took home seventeen medals from the previous 2014 Winter Olympics Sochi Games and has been the dominant force in alpine skiing and ski jumping. Germany, another winter sports heavyweight, tops the all-time Olympic medal table in biathlon, luge, and bobsled, and won nineteen medals in Sochi including eight golds.

However, many countries say they are preparing for the event as normal. Italy, Norway, the United States, and Canada all made statement reassuring that they are attending the Winter Games in Pyeongchang and normal preparation are underway.

In addition to this, on December 5th the International Olympic Committee (IOC) announced the suspension of the Russian Olympic Committee, from the 2018 Winter Olympics. Suspicions of Russian athletes doping in the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics caused the IOC to completed its own investigations. Doping, defined by the Merriam-Webster Dictionary is, “the use of a substance (such as an anabolic steroid or erythropoietin) or technique (such as blood doping) to illegally improve athletic performance.” After three years of investigations, the IOC ruled the nation was guilty of conducting an extensive state-backed doping program.

In spite of this bans severity, individual Russian athletes with no past doping record wanting to compete will have the opportunity to be approved by a specially appointed IOC panel, made up of representatives from different international anti-doping bodies. With full support from Russia’s Olympic Committee, it could mean that there, most likely, will still be a sizeable group of Russian athletes competing .

The athletes, that are approved will compete in neutral uniforms and under the unbiased label of “Olympic Athlete from Russia”. The IOC states that "They will compete with a uniform bearing this name and under the Olympic Flag," and that "The Olympic Anthem will be played in any ceremony." During the games, no Russian flags will not be displayed and the Russian national anthem will not be played.

However, if Russian athletes win gold, silver, or bronze medals, the official Olympic record book will record Russia's medal count as zero. And according to data compiled by the New York Times, Russian athletes could have been medal contenders in about a one-third of the 102 events.

The IOC stated that it may lift the Russian suspension for the Closing Ceremony, on February 25th, if Russia had met the conditions laid out in the decision. That would mean that Russian athletes could potentially still appear under the Russian flag to end the competition.