GANGNEUNG, South Korea — When the North Korean figure skaters Ryom Tae-ok and Kim Ju-sik took to the ice this week, cheerleaders chanting their names stowed the unified Korean flags they had waved at other events here at the Pyeongchang Olympics and whipped out their national flag.

After that unmistakable outburst of patriotic fervor, it was all the more incongruous when the pair began skating to a distinctly Western song: “A Day in the Life” by the Beatles, in a cover by Jeff Beck.

“I have no clue how they chose it,” said Bruno Marcotte, a prominent French Canadian coach. He worked with the pair, who placed 13th, for eight weeks last summer in Montreal and said their North Korean coach had selected the song. “I think the fact that everybody was, like, ‘Huh?’ makes it even more special.”

The musical choice seemed to belie the assumption that North Koreans, citizens of the most isolated country on earth, are cut off from knowledge of the outside world by the restrictions imposed by their autocratic leader, Kim Jong-un.