The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Olympic Committee have responded strongly to the incident in which an announcer introduced the South Korean athletes participating in the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games as “North Korea” and received an apology from International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach. It will be interesting to see if the IOC and the Games’ organizing committee can actually prevent the incident from happening again.
Vice Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Jang Jang-ran and Korean Olympic Committee President Lee Ki-heung met with Korean reporters at the Main Press Center (MPC) at the Palais des Congrès in Paris, France, on Sunday (June 27) to announce the outcome of the response to the national anthem controversy that erupted during the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics the day before. The Korean athletes were the 48th to enter the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics, which was held along the Seine River in Paris. During the ceremony, the announcer introduced Korea as ‘République populaire démocratique de corée’ in French. It was followed by the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in English.
The official name of South Korea is “République de corée” in French and “Republic of Korea” in English. The flag on the boat also read “Republic of Korea,” but the announcer made a mistake. The 153rd North Korean flag was actually called “République populaire démocratique de corée” or “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,” meaning that North Korea was called twice in one day.
“Yesterday, something happened that I wish hadn’t happened, and it was very regrettable,” said Deputy Minister Jang Jang-ran. ”Immediately after the opening ceremony, the government requested a meeting with the IOC President, and I also spoke to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in South Korea in the early hours of the morning to request their cooperation and explain the situation. The French Embassy in Korea also expressed great regret and apologized, and the following steps will be taken to prevent a recurrence,” he said. “It is a matter of great embarrassment and concern for our people, so we will ask for measures to prevent this from happening again, and we will ask for an apology,” he said.
Jang, a former ‘weightlifting empress’ who competed in the Olympics three times and won one gold, one silver and one bronze medal, said, “I am very sorry as a Korean citizen and now as a 카지노사이트 추천 vice minister, regardless of my personal life, because there are three Korean IOC members in Korea, so I will strongly protest to prevent this from happening again. We will apologize to our people so that they don’t feel bad, and we will play a role in that,” he said.
Sports Minister Lee Ki-heung also said, “The organizers failed to be delicate, and something ridiculous happened. We often fly the flag upside down, but we never thought of introducing the Korean national anthem to North Korea,” he said, expressing disbelief at the organizers’ inexplicable mishap. “There should be two things: a public apology and a direct apology,” said Lee, who is also an IOC member. “The IOC and the organizers have agreed today that there should be posters in each venue, that all the signs should be clear, so that there is no confusion,” he said, adding, ”It is important that this does not happen again.
“We shouldn’t be interfered with (the situation) and we shouldn’t be affected by it,” Lee said. ”I told the athletes to concentrate on the competition. The athletes were told to concentrate on the competition, and they still achieved good results in shooting (Ban Ban-hyun and Park Ha-joon won silver),” Lee said, adding, ”There were many accidents at the 2012 London Olympics. We won 13 gold medals and finished fifth overall. The athletes and (this incident) are separate issues,” he said.
Bach later apologized to President Yun via phone. “Something inexcusable happened,” Bach said in a 10-minute phone call, ”and I would like to express my respectful and deepest apologies.”