When political and geographical tensions shift from the country out, it creates an even greater resonance. And even more so when it’s the Olympics.
The South Korea flag is displayed at the North Korea football match
Even since the war that was fought from 1950 to 1953, North and South Korea have been more than bitter rivals. And now almost 60 years later, the same enmity remains.
The venue was Hampden Park on a Wednesday and it was a match to be played by North Korea against Columbia but ended up getting delayed by over an hour due to the “calamity” that took place. Two days remain for the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympics and the media is already abuzz with controversies.
When the South Korean flag was shown as the North Korean team was to be introduced, it spread only outrage that resulted in the team leaving the field. It is now being expressed as a “blunder” by the North Korean officials who are part of the International Olympic Committee. The mistake cannot be healed and would probably take a long, long time to be forgotten.
An official of the IOC said that there is outrage amongst the people of North Korea. Chang said that it was just like an athlete who had won a gold in a race and instead of the flag of his country to be honored, another nation’s flag was shown. North and South Korea are pitted against each other during the first round of the men’s table tennis match.
The incident is taking a number of representatives, including the Prime Minister to apologize. David Cameron said that it was an honest mistake and care would be taken in the future so that the occurrence does not take happen again.
The President of the International Olympics Committee Jacques Rogge said:
“The organizing committee has taken corrective action and there will be no repeat. It was a simple human mistake”.
The games have cost a fortune to have held and a small innocent mistake costs both the committee and the country dearly.
Earlier during the week, a Greek athlete had to pull out after he posted a racist tweet.
Tags: IOC, London Olympics 2012, North Korea, Olympics, South Korea
