Olympic Games organizers issued a formal apology after South Korean athletes were mistakenly introduced as being from North Korea during the opening ceremony in Paris.
As the South Korean athletes waved their nation’s flag on a boat floating down the Seine on Friday evening, the announcer incorrectly identified them in both French and English as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea). South Korea is officially known as the Republic of Korea.
“We deeply apologize for the mistake that occurred when introducing the Korean team during the opening ceremony broadcast,” the International Olympic Committee (IOC) stated in a post on X in Korean.
IOC President Thomas Bach is scheduled to meet with South Korea’s leader, Yoon Suk-yeol, regarding the incident. The South Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism announced it would file “a strong government-level complaint” with the French government. Additionally, South Korea’s Olympic committee has requested that the organizers of the Paris Games take measures to prevent similar incidents in the future.
IOC spokesperson Mark Adams described the error as “clearly deeply regrettable,” attributing it to an operational mistake amidst the complexity of the evening. “We can only apologize, in an evening of so many moving parts, that this mistake was made,” Adams said.
A similar incident occurred at the 2012 Olympics in London, where organizers apologized for a human error that resulted in South Korea’s flag being displayed alongside North Korea’s women’s football team during a match in Glasgow.
South Korea and North Korea, established as separate entities in 1948, maintain a tense relationship. The Korean War, which devastated the peninsula and claimed millions of lives, primarily civilians, further deepened the divide between the two nations.