It now appears that North Korea will participate in the winter Olympics next month, which means a figure skating pair from the country, that spent time training last summer with Sudbury’s world champion Meagan Duhamel, will be heading to those games.

News that North Korea now plans to send Ryom Tae-ok and Kim Ju-Sik to compete in pairs figure skating on the Olympic stage, reverberated thousands of kilometres away, in a small arena outside Montreal.

“I’m super ecstatic about this news. Ultimately they're athletes that just want to be the best they can be at their sport.” said Julie Marcotte, skating choreographer.

The skaters trained in Quebec this past summer under Canadian figure skating coach and former competitor, Bruno Marcotte, after approaching him at the world championships.

He says he recognized their raw talent.

“I really felt I could bring something to the table to help them grow as a pairs team. They bring so much passion, so much charisma and they have so much love for the sport.” said Marcotte.

Bruno's sister, Julie, says it felt like they knew it was an opportunity to be in Canada.

“They haven't had the chance, like others, to compete on the international scene.” she said.

The coaching team says there was no real talk of politics.

“Most of our conversation was how can we be better, how can we one day be at the top of the podium at world’s. So no, everything was about sports.” said Marcotte.

The North Korean pair was inspired by the other athletes on Marcotte's winning team, world champions and Olympians, Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford, whose careers they'd tracked.

“This was their ultimate goal, to qualify a spot for their country and I think they felt a lot of pressure to do that.” said Duhamel.

It appears a Canadian approach was just what they needed.

After two intense months here, Tae-ok and Ju-sik qualified for the Olympics, in Germany last September and now their government says it will allow them to compete in February.

“I think that it just sends such a great message and I think for them the experience is just going to be amazing. I mean it's every athlete's dream to be at the Olympics.” said Eric Radford.

The Canadian team says it’s gratifying to be able to help them along the way, saying the sport can melt all the differences away.