Olympic organizers said they offer their “deepest apologies” for introducing South Korean athletes as North Korean athletes during the opening ceremony in Paris.
As the South Korean athletes waved their country’s flag from a boat sailing down the Seine on Friday night, they were announced in French and English as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. South Korea is the Republic of Korea.
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“We sincerely apologize for the error in introducing the Korean team during the broadcast of the opening ceremony,” the International Olympic Committee said in a message on X in Korean.
IOC President Thomas Bach will also meet South Korea’s leader Yoon Suk Yeol over the incident. South Korea’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism said it would file a “strong government-level complaint” with the French government.
A statement from the ministry said the South Korean Olympic Committee has separately requested the organizers of the Paris Games to prevent a recurrence of similar incidents.
IOC spokesman Mark Adams called the error “clearly very regrettable” on Saturday.
He added that “an operational error was made. We can only apologize, on a night with so many moving parts, that this error was made.”
A similar incident occurred during the 2012 London Olympics. Organizers apologized and blamed human error when the South Korean flag appeared on the stadium screens next to the North Korean women’s team as the players warmed up for their opening match.
South Korea and North Korea, established as separate entities in 1948, have tense relations. The Korean War, which tore the peninsula apart, cost millions of lives, mostly civilians.
