They arrived for the opening ceremony dressed in pale gray coats, waving to the crowd and taking selfies as if to prove to themselves that they were really there, after all, at the Olympics.

In fact, 169 Olympic Athletes From Russia, as they are officially known, arrived in South Korea for the Pyeongchang Games. After the scandal over Russia’s state-controlled doping scheme at the 2014 Sochi Games, it seemed as if there would be no athletes from that country at all.