Amid heightened tensions between the two nations, a North Korean figure skating duo has qualified for the 2018 Olympic Games in PyeongChang, South Korea.
Ryom Tae-Ok and Kim Ju-Sik claimed the third of the final five spots in the pairs skating event at an Olympic qualifying event in Oberstdorf, Germany on Friday.
The Pyongyang-natives finished fifth after the short program on Thursday and sixth in the free skate Friday for a sixth-overall finish. North Korea was not represented at the 2014 Sochi Games.
The Canadian team of Camille Ruest and Andrew Wolfe finished 10th overall.
Russians Evgenia Tarasova and Vladimir Morozov took home top prize, but had already qualified for the Games because of their performance at the 2017 ISU World Figure Skating Championships in Finland.
Canada will have three entries into the Olympic pairs skating competition after the team of Liubov Ilyushechkina and Dylan Moscovitch and the team of Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford finished sixth and seventh, respectively, in the World Championships. Their combined totals gave Canada a third birth into the event.
The pairs skating event in PyeongChang begins on Feb. 14, 2018.
