GANGNEUNG, South Korea — It was their first outing as a team together, and it was a rout.

The unified Korean women’s hockey team, which skated onto the ice bearing the heaviest symbolic weight of the Pyeongchang Games, lost, 8-0, to Switzerland on Saturday night.

As the only sports team competing here with athletes from both North and South Korea, the women’s ice hockey players had come to represent hopes of a breakthrough in a geopolitical standoff that has stirred fears of nuclear conflict on the divided peninsula.

With South Korea’s president, Moon Jae-in, watching from the stands with Kim Yong-nam, the North’s ceremonial head of state, and Kim Yo-jong, the only sister of Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea, the diplomatic agenda driving the unified team was never in doubt.

Jong Su-hyon, a North Korean player, said at a news conference after the game that playing in front of top leadership of both countries was “the greatest honor for me.”