Why this podium selfie with North and South Korean athletes at the Olympics is so striking
South Korea won bronze and North Korea bagged silver in the mixed doubles, and South Korea’s Lim Jong-hoon celebrated the occasion by whipping out a phone for a picture.
Occasionally, the two Koreas have formed unified teams for international sporting competitions. The 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang featured both countries marching as one in the opening ceremony and playing as one unified team in the women’s ice hockey competition.
But despite overtures of a unified team for the Tokyo 2020 Games, things fell apart and sporting relations froze once again.
In recent weeks, tensions in the Korean Peninsula have flared up over thousands of garbage-laden balloons Pyongyang sent to South Korea, some of which have reached the grounds of the presidential compound in Seoul.
North and South Korea are still technically at war. The Korean War ended in 1953 with an armistice, and no peace treaty has ever been signed.
These Olympics have already seen some drama involving an embarrassing mix-up between the two nations.
Olympics organizers have “deeply apologized” to South Korea over a “human error” that saw its 143 athletes wrongly introduced as North Korean at the opening ceremony.
The mishap occurred last Friday, when the South Korean athletes made their debut on a boat cruising down the River Seine. Both the French and English announcements falsely identified them as being from the “People’s Democratic Republic of Korea.”
That’s the incorrect full name of North Korea, which is officially known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The official name of South Korea is the Republic of Korea.
The 2022 Winter Olympics, if they allow for a unified team, could potentially see both Koreas competing together in various sports, especially in the arena of shared passions like sport. Despite the ongoing tensions and the mix-up during the recent Olympics, the spirit of sportsmanship and unity in competition has always been a glimmer of hope in Korea's complex political landscape.
