There was a weird scene in the middle of the parade of nations at the opening ceremony of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. 

Two men dressed as President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un came down the steps leading to the area where the media was sitting and once at the first row, turned and started waving to the crowd. 

At first no one reacted, but slowly media and spectators descended on the pair, snapping photos and shooting video with their phones. It all lasted about a minute before the volunteers in the area walked over to escort them back to their seats. 

The Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, the first Games held in South Korea in 30 years, officially opened on Friday with fireworks, song and symbolism featured amid celebrations of light, peace, and harmony.

With nods to the country’s landmarks and ancient culture as well as its potential to lead the world in future technological innovations, the opening ceremony at Olympic Stadium featured athletes from 91 countries, including a delegation from North Korea that marched into Olympic Stadium with athletes from South Korea.  Kim Yo Jong, the sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un; U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach were among the powerful political and sports figures who attended the extravaganza on a chilly night.

The two Koreas marched in behind a white flag that was emblazoned with a map of the Korean peninsula depicted in blue. North Korean women’s hockey player Hwang Chung-gum and South Korean bobsleigh pilot Won Yun-jong both clutched the flag pole in a noteworthy display of unity. The two nations have marched together at an Olympics but this time have taken the extraordinary step of combining on the composition of the women’s hockey team.

Friday’s Winter Olympics TV schedule. All times Pacific.

3 a.m.: Figure skating (team competition), freestyle skiing (moguls qualifying). Repeats broadcast from 8 p.m. Thursday night. NBC

5 p.m.: Opening ceremony, NBC

The opening ceremony of the Pyeongchang Olympics was crashed briefly by Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un impersonators, who made their way into the media seating section and turned to salute the crowd

The two impersonators were quickly escorted back to their seats by the volunteers at the stadium but not before they were mobbed by spectators and members of the media.

A lot was made in the lead-up to the opening ceremony about the freezing temperatures. Our own David Wharton wrote about the weather conditions and how it would change how the athletes and the fans would experience the Games. 

Well, we can report that it is indeed very cold inside the stadium and we are still about two hours from the official start of the Games. The wind is picking up and the metal bleachers inside the stadium already are very difficult to sit on. 

The temperature at 6:20 p.m. local time is 27 degrees with a wind chill of 17, and it’s expected to drop as the sun sets. 

Lindsey Vonn plans to enter the downhill, super-giant slalom and combined events in what the U.S. Alpine skiing icon says will be her final Olympics.

Vonn, who missed the Sochi Olympics in 2014 because of a knee injury, won’t compete in the giant slalom because of the knee.

“I want to end on a high note,” she said Friday. “I really want to put an exclamation point on my career.”

U.S. men’s figure skating champion Nathan Chen looked nothing like the jump master he became while enjoying an undefeated season, surprisingly falling twice during his short program Friday morning in the first phase of the Olympic team event.

Conversely, the American husband-and-wife duo of Alexa Scimeca-Knierim and Chris Knierim, known for performing beautiful twists and lifts but struggling with side-by-side jumps, were nearly flawless in their short program and sealed it with a kiss at center ice at Gangneung Ice Arena.

Whether it was the earliness of the hour—the event started shortly after 10 a.m. local time—or the pressure of performing at the Olympics hitting home, a startling number of skaters stumbled through the first day of the team competition.

Stacey Cook didn’t act like someone who slammed into safety netting at 80 mph last week when a downhill run in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, went wrong.

The U.S. Alpine skier covered a black eye with makeup and hoped the cold in Pyeongchang will numb her aching legs. Otherwise, the four-time Olympian from Mammoth Lakes is healthy after a cringe-inducing collision that appeared certain to keep her from competing in the Games.

“I had a very violent, dramatic crash,” Cook said Thursday. “Sometimes you can’t explain why an injury happens and sometimes you can’t explain why you’re OK.”

Hours before the opening ceremony at the 2018 Winter Games, U.S. Olympic Committee officials sat down with reporters to talk about the competition but ended up answering question after question about the Larry Nassar sexual abuse scandal.

USOC Chairman Larry Probst faced most of the heat and, to some degree, side-stepped assertions that his organization deserved more blame for allowing Nassar’s crimes to continue unaddressed for years.

“The Olympic system in the United States failed those athletes,” he said. “And we are part of the Olympic system in the United States.”

Two-time U.S. Olympic bobsled medalist Elana Meyers Taylor pledged to donate her brain for concussion research in hopes of helping other female athletes. 

"I think the hardest thing for me, just being an advocate for women in sports, was knowing that women are more likely to suffer concussions but there’s not much out there on women and concussions," Meyers Taylor said Friday. "How it affects us differently, because obviously there are hormonal differences. We just don’t have the research on it."

Earlier this week, the Boston-based Concussion Legacy Foundation announced the pledge by Meyers Taylor.