PYEONGCHANG, South Korea — When Aileen Frisch of Germany became the world junior luge champion in 2012, it might have seemed that her Olympic future was set. It was, but for a country she never expected — South Korea.
After South Korea won hosting rights to the 2018 Winter Games in 2011, the country needed to turn Pyeongchang, a little-known hamlet 100 miles east of Seoul, into a winter sports capital capable of staging competitions in 15 sports and housing 3,000 athletes and thousands more Olympic officials, journalists and visitors. It also needed a luge team.