By Adam Minter
This week, South Korea accepted North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's offer of “urgent” talks over his country's participation in the 2018 Olympic Games in PyeongChang. Although the sudden engagement over what might amount to two figure skaters crossing the border may not seem like a big deal, history suggests that ignoring the entreaty could be a major missed opportunity.
To understand the significance of these talks, it's worth remembering the last time the Olympic Games were held on the Korean Peninsula in 1988. The International Olympic Committee's decision to award the games to Seoul that year came as a surprise. At the time, South Korea was emerging from a coup and bloody demonstrations. Its economy was in tatters, the Soviet bloc was refusing to recognize it diplomatically, and tensions with North Korea were soaring.
It was also a perilous moment for the broader Olympic project. Both the 1980 Moscow Games and the 1984 Los Angeles Games had been tarnished by Cold War-era boycotts. There were serious fears that yet another boycott, this time in support of North Korea, could permanently undermine what legitimacy the Olympic movement still had.
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