Seoul: The International Olympic Committee apologized Saturday for a gaffe during the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics in which South Korean athletes were incorrectly introduced as North Korean.
\nAs the South Korean delegation sailed down the Seine river in the French capital, they were introduced with the official name for North Korea: \u201cRepublique populaire democratique de Coree\u201d in French, then \u201cDemocratic People\u2019s Republic of Korea\u201d in English.
\n\u201cWe deeply apologize for the mistake that occurred when introducing the South Korean team during the broadcast of the opening ceremony,\u201d the IOC said in a post on its official Korean-language X account.
\nThe error sparked displeased reactions in South Korea, a global cultural and technological powerhouse that is technically still at war with the nuclear-armed and impoverished North.
\nThe Korean Sport & Olympic Committee said later Saturday that it had received a message from the IOC indicating that its chief, Thomas Bach, wished to directly apologize to the president of South Korea over the phone.
\nEarlier, South Korea\u2019s sports ministry said in a statement it \u201cexpresses regret\u201d over the \u201cannouncement during the opening ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics, where the South Korean delegation was introduced as the North Korean team.\u201d
\nSecond vice sports minister Jang Mi-ran, a 2008 Olympic weightlifting champion, has asked for a meeting with IOC chief Bach to discuss the matter, it added.
\nThe country\u2019s foreign ministry said in a statement it had contacted the French embassy in Seoul which expressed regret over what it said was an \u201cincomprehensible mistake.\u201d
\nNorth Korea was correctly introduced with the country\u2019s official name.
\nRelations between the two Koreas are at one of their lowest points in years, with the North bolstering military ties with Russia while sending thousands of trash-carrying balloons to the South.
\nIn response, Seoul\u2019s military blasts K-pop and anti-regime messages from border loudspeakers and recently resumed live-fire drills on border islands and near the demilitarised zone that divides the Korean peninsula.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Seoul: The International Olympic Committee apologized Saturday for a gaffe during the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics in which South Korean athletes were incorrectly introduced as North Korean. As the South Korean delegation sailed down the Seine river in the French capital, they were introduced with the official name for North Korea: \u201cRepublique populaire …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":67921,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67902"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67902\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67930,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67902\/revisions\/67930"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}