The 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, officially ended Sunday night with a spectacular closing ceremony featuring athletes dancing to electronic music, but at least one nation’s competitors will return to their home country in fear.
The failed Olympians from North Korea will return this week hoping to avoid the notorious gulags, a fate the country’s losing soccer team experienced after the 1966 World Cup, Fox News reported.
Nearly two dozen athletes from North Korea competed as part of a joint team in South Korea in events like figure skating, skiing and ice hockey, but failed to medal in a single event.
A survivor of the gulags recounted how the 1966 World Cup team players were imprisoned for losing to Portugal 5-3, while at the 2010 World Cup, the losing team reportedly were criticized in a six-hour “grand debate” for betraying “the trust of [North Korean dictator] Kim Jong Un.”
In addition, North Korea’s peppy cheer squad of 229 artists and musicians, who drew ire on social media after creepily cheering and dancing in perfect unison, are allegedly being forced into sex slavery, a defector who fled to South Korea told Bloomberg.
Meet North Korea's Cheerleading Squad
What to know about the North Korean cheerleaders dubbed the "Army of Beauties." http://ti.me/2CfQJuT
Posted by TIME on Monday, February 12, 2018
The country has only even won two medals—a silver and bronze in, speed skating and short-track speed skating, respectively.
In 2015, Kim Jong Un vowed to improve that record by pushing for stronger athletes. North Korea, however, entered the competition unprepared and didn’t even have a finalized roster until January.
(H/T: Fox News)