Ten North Korean skiers and skaters arrived in the South Thursday to take part in the Pyeongchang Winter Games, setting the stage for a "peace Olympics" after a year of high tensions over Pyongyang's nuclear programme.

Eight days before the opening ceremony, the athletes were among a delegation that landed in Gangneung, on South Korea's east coast, after a rare direct flight between the two halves of the divided peninsula – for which a special exemption had to be sought from US sanctions.

In black fur hats, they made their way through the terminal without saying a word to a pursuing pack of reporters and boarded buses that took them to the athletes' village.

Well-wishers at the airport held up banners depicting reunification flags – a blue Korean peninsula on a white background – with one proclaiming: "We are one".