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From the Olympics Toword Tomorrow

Shinano Mainichi

N. Korea prepares women's ice hockey team for Olympics

North Korea is planning to broaden its Olympic participation with a women's ice hockey team for the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City, a senior North Korean official said Sunday.

''Our ice hockey players, the ladies, are very good,'' said Chang Ung, secretary general of North Korea's Olympic committee.

''But unfortunately before the qualifying tournament in Canada they didn't have enough experience. Next time we'll see,'' said Chang, a former member of the national basketball team.

He said the country might also bring in figure skaters in the future, but North Korean sports officials want them first to compete in Asian competitions.

In the Nagano Games, which open Feb. 7, 10 North Korean athletes, including three males, will compete in just speed skating and short-track speed skating.

Chang said all of the team members have been training at two indoor ice rinks in downtown Pyongyang and are experiencing their first Olympic Games.

North Koreans will be able to watch their athletes on television, he said.

Asked why North Korea competes only in a comparatively few international competitions, Chang said, ''It's not only (a question of) money, but also results, I need results.''

He said a North Korean team will be sent to the World Youth Games in Moscow in July, to the Asian Games slated for December in Bangkok and most likely to the Goodwill Games in New York next year.

And, he said, North Korea will ''of course'' participate in the 2000 Olympics in Sydney.

Chang denied that people in North Korea are starving due to a prolonged food shortage. ''We have certain difficulties to get food, not a crisis,'' he said, adding ''Crisis means you are going to die.''

He would not confirm reports that food is being strictly rationed and said, ''As for the sports, food is no problem at all.''

Last week Chang was quoted as telling reporters in Beijing that the food crisis is also affecting the North Korean sports world.

(Kyodo News)

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Copyright 1998 The Shinano Mainichi Shimbun