The Latest: N Korea delegation arrives in S Korea
PYEONGCHANG, South Korea (AP) The Latest on the Pyeongchang Olympics (all times local):
12:05 p.m.
A high-level delegation of North Korean officials has arrived in South Korea to attend the closing ceremony of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.
The delegation is led by Kim Yong Chol, a senior North Korean party official suspected of being behind two deadly attacks on South Korea in 2010. They crossed the border in Paju around 10 a.m. Sunday local time.
Ivanka Trump, the daughter of U.S. President Donald Trump, will also attend the closing ceremony, but there’s been no indication that there are plans for the U.S. delegation to meet the North Korean delegation.
North Korea wasn’t expected to come to Pyeongchang until a last-minute announcement by Kim Jong Un on New Year’s Day that he wanted to send a team.
The North Korean delegation will be in South Korea until Tuesday.
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11:40 a.m.
U.S. women’s bobsledder Lauren Gibbs is going home from Pyeongchang Olympics with a silver medal and a selfie with Ivanka Trump.
Gibbs spent part of her Sunday morning watching the four-man bobsled competition with Trump, the daughter of U.S. President Donald Trump. Ivanka Trump is part of the U.S. delegation in Pyeongchang for the end of the games, and has been in South Korea since Friday.
The president’s daughter says that while she prefers skiing as her top winter sport, her children are more fans of bobsledding.
Gibbs wore the silver medal that she and Elana Meyers Taylor won in the women’s bobsled event at Pyeongchang, and grabbed a selfie with Trump during the third heat of the men’s finale Sunday.
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11:30 a.m.
The Swedish women have won the gold medal in the final match of a marathon curling festival. They beat South Korea 8-3 in nine ends to leave the ”Garlic Girls” with a silver that is the hosts’ first Olympic medal in the sport.
Sweden took control of the match by stealing a point in back-to-back ends – the fourth and the fifth – even though South Korea had the last-rock advantage known as the hammer. After South Korea mustered just one point in the sixth, Swedish skip Anna Hasselborg delivered a takeout on her final rock of the seventh to score three points and open a 7-2 lead.
The South Koreans picked up one point in the eighth, but when they couldn’t keep the Swedes from scoring in the ninth, they conceded.
The Swedes hugged and jumped up and down on the ice. South Korean skip Kim Eun-jung, who became a folk hero with her unexpected rise to the Olympic podium, took off her iconic owlish glasses and wiped tears away from her eyes.
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11:15 a.m.
The International Olympic Committee has upheld its ban of Russia from the Pyeongchang Olympics, denying the country the chance to march into the closing ceremony under its own flag.
The vote came Sunday just hours before the closing ceremony.
Russia was banned from these Winter Games after a massive doping scandal at the 2014 Sochi Olympics, but the IOC had left open the possibility of reinstatement before the start of the closing ceremony.
However, two of the more than 160 athletes competing as Olympic Athletes from Russia tested positive for banned substances, including a curler who had to forfeit his bronze medal. That’s half of the four doping cases reported so far at this year’s Olympics.
The positive tests come after the IOC had said Russian athletes had been ”rigorously tested” months before the games – and during them.
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10:45 a.m.
The International Olympic Committee executive board has recommended upholding the ban of Russia from the Pyeongchang Winter Games because of a massive doping scandal.
The full membership will vote on the proposal Sunday ahead of the closing ceremony.
The IOC could readmit the Russian team, continue the ban or hedge with what it has described as a ”partial solution.”
IOC President Thomas Bach says a condition for Russia’s reinstatement is no further positive drug tests at these Olympics. Two of the four athletes who tested positive in Pyeongchang were competing as ”Olympic Athletes from Russia.”
Russia was banned from the Olympics because of widespread doping at the 2014 Sochi Games.
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10:40 a.m.
Four gold medals are being awarded on the final day of the Pyeongchang Olympics.
Medal will be handed out in women’s curling, the four-man bobsled, men’s hockey and the women’s 50-kilometer cross-country mass start race.
The ”Garlic Girls” are in trouble in the curling match between South Korea and Sweden.
The South Korean team fell behind 4-1 to Sweden through the halftime break on Sunday morning. After taking a point with the first end, the hosts gave up two in the third and then Sweden stole a point in the fourth and fifth ends even though Korea had the last-rock advantage known as the hammer.
Sweden is in its fourth straight gold medal game, already claiming two golds and a silver to go with the bronze it won in 1998. But its men’s team settled for silver with a stunning upset by the U.S. men on Saturday night. The country’s king attended both matches.
The women’s team led by Kim Eun-jung has sparked excitement in the host country with its backstory from South Korea’s garlic-producing region and the skip’s owlish eyeglasses.
In hockey, Germany plays the Russian team after toppling defending champions Canada in the semifinal.
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