Frozen Nights, Warm Spirits at the PyeongChang Games

(ATR) Fans of the Winter Olympics are doing their best to combat the cold during late night events in PyeongChang 2018.

To accommodate broadcast times in Europe and North America, a high number of Olympic medal events are starting late in the evening. This leaves fans, athletes, and judges in the perilous position of sitting out in the cold late at night.

In the Olympic Plaza, a small but lively group of flag-waving fans come out to see their country’s heroes accept their Olympic medals. Athletes don’t receive their medals at the venues where they won, but rather at an orchestrated ceremony hours or sometimes a day later in the PyeongChang Olympic Plaza.

The night’s ceremonies went in rapid fire succession one after the other giving fans a constant bombardment of entertainment in the cold. After the ceremonies, an outdoor K-Pop concert took place.

Tyler Hess traveled 13 hours to the 2018 Winter Olympics to stay with his brother, who lives nearby. He had already seen Chris Mazdzer win silver in luge, and was going to see women’s ski jumping after attending some medal ceremonies.

"Right now the American flag is raising in the background, and it’s pretty inspiring; I’ve always wanted to see that," Hess said to Around the Rings. "We got heat warmers on our toes, and on our [behinds]. It is not too bad as long as you stay moving, it is not too bad."

Over in Bokwang it was a high-tempo, fun-filled night as you would hope and expect at an Olympic freestyle skiing event staged under the lights.

Fans in the Phoenix Snow Park finish area not only waved flags, but some were adorned in costumes including Koreans dressed like the PyeongChang white tiger mascot Soohorang and a Frenchman impersonating a rooster.

"Even if the weather was cold, our energy and the atmosphere made us warm, even hot," said Seoul resident Gahyun Lee. "It was the first time for us to watch the Olympics in person and it was really fun."

"My toes were almost frozen, but it is not a problem to be here," said Choong-rae Lee. "It was such a great time here."

With the temperature hovering around -12c/10f and only moderate wind, it was certainly cold, but not unbearable.

While there was undoubtedly a fun and upbeat atmosphere near the finish area, the spacious bleachers further back were no more than half-filled.

Overwhelming favorite Mikael Kingsbury of Canada was clearly the best of the bump skiers, winning his first Olympic gold and inciting the large contingent of enthusiastic Canadians packing the finish area.

"The energy was unbelievable with the music pumping, the very vocal fans and the dramatic energy throughout with the ups and downs of the competitors – it was incredible," said Georgia Sapounas, a Toronto native taking part in the Canadian celebration.

Joining the party-going Canadians, Australian and Japanese fans and team staff fervently celebrated their silver and bronze medalists, with the latter group swiftly moving finish area fencing to clear their way and storm to the finish area revelry.

FIS freestyle race director Joe Fitzgerald quickly reprimanded the teams, telling them that it’s not acceptable to pull apart the fencing. However, Fitzgerald was pleased with the outcome of the evening.

"Nice atmosphere, good performances by the athletes and everyone was cheering on all the nations," Fitzgerald told ATR. "Many nations represented in the crowd and we’re very satisfied."

Written by Aaron Bauer in PyeongChang and Brian Pinelli in Bokwang

25 Years at #1: Your best source of news about the Olympics is AroundTheRings.com, for subscribers only.