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.

South Korea has experienced limited Olympic success in winter sports. Of its 53 medals, 42 have come in short-track speedskating, nine in long-track speed skating and two in figure skating. None have come in the sliding sports of bobsled, luge or skeleton.

So South Korea has followed a familiar strategy for host nations that do not excel at winter sports and do not want to be embarrassed before a home audience: It went shopping, hiring a number of foreign coaches and granting citizenship to athletes from other countries. South Korea found a luger from Germany. Hockey players from the United States and Canada. Biathletes from Russia. A cross-country skier from Norway. An ice dancer from Boston.