SOCHI -- North Korea will miss the Winter Olympic Games for the first time in 12 years, an Olympics official here said Tuesday.| Darn! All that work on the new ski slope and there's no Nork team in the free style? |
The Sochi Winter Olympics' website lists North Korea as a participating country but doesn't display any athlete. Last month, an informed source in Moscow told Yonhap News Agency that Pyongyang would send Kim Yong-nam, the country's ceremonial head of state
North Korea last missed a Winter Olympics in 2002 in Salt Lake City. The reclusive state's first Winter Games was in Innsbruck in 1966. The North also entered the Winters Games in 1972, 1984, 1988, 1992 and 1998.