Europe takes up 64% of total entries for PyeongChang Olympics

Europe takes up 64% of total entries for PyeongChang Olympics. February. 02, 2018 08:38. by Heon-Jae Lee uni@donga.com.
Popular wisdom holds that winter Olympics are a feast for Europe and North America. The upcoming winter Olympic Games to be hosted in Pyeongchang, South Korea is no exception.

According to the tallies of the PyeongChang Olympics info system, a total 2,924 athletes from 92 countries across the globe are registered for entry as of Thursday. Among them 1,884 are Europeans, which takes up 64.4 percent of the total. The continent with the second largest number of athletes is North and South Americas. Entries from the United States and Canada account for the majority, with 242 and 226 athletes, respectively, to compete in the winter games. Combined, the number of players from Europe and the two Americas stand at 2,352, hovering over 80 percent of the total entry pool.

Among Asian nations, South Korea, as the host country, is fielding the largest number of players in the games, followed by Japan and China with 124 and 81 athletes, respectively, to the PyeongChang Olympics. North Korean delegation, which has earned a wildcard by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), is sending 22 players, the largest number of participants that the communist country has presented for winter Olympic games. The African continent where snow is an extreme rarity is sending a mere 12 players in total.

Ice hockey will see the biggest number of players participating among the 15 games to take place in Pyeongchang. The number of participating nations is small at 14, but the entries are high (25 male and 23 female athletes). For female ice hockey, North Korea is sending 12 players, teaming up with the South for a single team. By contrast, curling will draw the smallest number of participants of 50. Nordic Combined follows with 55 participants.

Alpine skiing will be a game contested by the biggest number of nations, with 81 countries jockeying for the gold among the 92 participating countries. Qualification is relatively easier to come by as countries that pass the standard records are entitled to one berth each for one male and a female player, under the authority of the International Ski Federation (FIS).