(ATR) South Korea's ice hockey teams, ranked 23rd and 24th, will take the ice at the PyeongChang Olympics. (A total of 49 men's teams, and 38 women's teams are ranked by the International Ice Hockey Federation).
On Friday, the IIHF announced its decision taken at its semi-annual congress. South Korea is the first team to qualify for the Games.
An ambitious, $20-million, four-year development program presented by the Korean Ice Hockey Association helped sway the IIHF. Due to South Korea's relatively weak ice hockey program, the host team was not assured of automatic qualification.
"Korean hockey has been working for a long time for this opportunity, and to have this presented to us today is overwhelming," Korean men’s national team head coach Jim Paek said in the IIHF report.
"I don’t want to make any promises but as long as we focus on the process every day to get better I think we’ll be very competitive and hopefully we’ll represent the country well."
The South Korean ice hockey teams last participated in a Winter Olympics at Nagano 1998.
Norway Also Qualifies for Olympics
Norway's men's and women's ice hockey teams will automatically qualify for the 2016 Youth Olympic Games ice hockey tournaments. The remaining teamswill be selected from a combined men’s and women’s under-18 ranking from the 2014 and 2015 IIHF championship program.
Lillehammer is the 2016 YOG city.
Written by Andrew Murrell.
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