Olympics a chance to put tensions on ice

Scratch beneath the political permafrost and the frozen vials of Russian urine, set aside a far-from-thawed Cold War, and a Winter Olympics is threatening to break out in Pyeongchang.

With the temperature predictably plummeting in the Olympic Stadium, a Games whose build-up has been beset by an interminable doping scandal and specious talk of peace on the Korean peninsula, was declared open by International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach.

Alluding to an issue which was only finally clarified less than nine hours prior to the lighting of the flame, when the appeals of 47 excluded Russian athletes were thrown out by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, Bach told the athletes: