And the roofless stadium won?t be any help Pyeongchang, South Korea, is prepped for the 2018 Winter Olympics: The venues are ready to go, the athletes have arrived, and early reports are that everything in the Olympic Village is running smoothly?save for an outbreak of norovirus. The main concern before Friday?s opening ceremony" The cold.
Built to hold 35,000 people, the open-air pentagonal Pyeongchang Olympic Stadium will host the opening and closing ceremonies at the Olympics. The stadium is a temporary structure that will be dismantled after the Olympics are over, and one of the ways organizers saved money and time was by building the structure without a roof or heating.
That could be a problem. In a news conference on Wednesday, the Korean Meteorological Administration reported that at 8:00 p.m. local time in Pyeongchang?when the opening ceremony is set to begin?it should be between 23 and 28 degrees Fahrenheit. The agency says that?s about normal for February temperatures in the region, where lows regularly drop to 14 degrees. Those temperatures might not seem that bad to many in the United States, but Pyeongchang?s notoriously cold winds will add an additional factor for the crowds. At the opening ceremony rehearsal on Saturday, the wind chill lowered temperatures to minus 9 degrees Fahrenheit. And winter athletes?accustomed to years of cold-weather sports?have already taken to social media with comments about the icy weather.

It's only about -5 degr...