Dazzling ceremony opens Winter Olympics

The 2018 Winter Games are under way. The opening ceremony was held on Friday in pentagon-shaped Pyeongchang Olympic Stadium in front of 35,000 spectators.

More than 2,900 athletes from 92 countries will compete at the games, among them 19 athletes from Croatia. The team had numbered 20, but skier Lana Zbašnik suffered an injury during training for the giant slalom on Wednesday. Sadly, the games for 18-year-old from Rijeka, ended before they began.

The central theme of the opening ceremony was peace. The dazzling spectacle followed the five imaginary children searching for peace, their journey presented in parts throughout the ceremony.

The parade of nations took place mid-ceremony, with the athletes of the 2018 Winter Olympics marching into the stadium amid thundering cheers and applause. This was the eighth time that Croatian athletes were competing under the Croatian flag. Leading Team Croatia was flag bearer Natko Zrnčić Dim, the 31-year-old alpine skier. He is the fourth Croatian alpine skier to have the honor of bearing the flag at the opening ceremony.

The games in Pyeongchang feature four more national teams than the 2014 games in Sochi and 10 more than the 2010 games in Vancouver. Ecuador, Eritrea, Kosovo, Malaysia, Nigeria and Singapore marched in the parade of nations for the first time. The United States has sent its largest team ever to the games, 242 athletes.

The athlete who attracted the most attention by far was Pita Taufatofua, the only member of Tonga's Olympic team. He marched into the Olympic Stadium shirtless. With his chest and torso gleaming with oil, Taufatofua carried his country's flag and a big smile, despite near-freezing temperatures. Taufatofua is no stranger to the games. He competed in the Summer Games in Rio in taekwondo and will represent Tonga in cross-country skiing in Pyeongchang. 

South and North Korean Olympic athletes marched together under a single flag at the opening ceremony, in one of the most visible signs of thawing relations on the Korean peninsula. The joint flag bearers were South Korean male bobsledder, Won Yun-jong, and North Korean female hockey player, Hwang Chung-gum. North Korea sent its ceremonial head of state, Kim Yong-nam, and Kim Yo-jung, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong, to the ceremony. They were seen applauding and waving at the Koreas' athletes.

The highest honor bestowed during the Olympic Ceremony, the lighting of the cauldron at the climax of the event, went to figure skater Yuna Kim, a hugely popular figure known in South Korea.

Croatian athletes will make their debut at these games on Sunday in the alpine downhill competition and cross-country skiing.