Unified Korean team to make a joint entrance to Pyeongchang Olympics

Posted on : 2018-01-18 18:09 KST Modified on : 2019-10-19 20:29 KST
This will be the first time since the 2007 Asian Winter Games
The unified Korean team makes a joint entrance to the opening ceremony of the Athens Summer Olympics in 2004. (Olympics Photo Pool)
The unified Korean team makes a joint entrance to the opening ceremony of the Athens Summer Olympics in 2004. (Olympics Photo Pool)

The sight of a unified South and North Korean team making a joint entrance under a Korean Peninsula flag will be returning for the Feb. 9 opening ceremony of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. The event will also include joint cheering by South and North Korean squads and members of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (Chongryon).

During inter-Korean working-level talks at Panmunjeom on Jan. 17, South and North Korea agreed to have their respective athletes make a joint entrance under a Korean Peninsula flag at the opening ceremony. It will be the first joint entrance by South and North Korean teams in the 11 years since the 2007 Asian Winter Games in Changchun.

The Korean Peninsula flag, which the two sides agreed upon as a “unified flag,” was first developed at athletic talks held at Panmunjeom during the Roh Tae-woo administration in Oct. 1989 to discuss the two sides fielding a unified team at the 1990 Asian Games in Beijing. The flag was decided after the South Korean side accepted the North’s suggestion of a blue silhouette of the Korean Peninsula against a white field. The flag ended up unused after negotiations on the composition of the unified team broke down.

The two sides eventually resumed talks in 1991 and agreed to field unified teams at the World Table Tennis Championships in Chiba, Japan, and the FIFA World Youth Championship in Portugal, resulting in the first uses of the Korean Peninsula flag. South and North Korea made their first joint entrance under a unified flag since the peninsula’s division at the opening ceremony of the 2000 Sydney Olympics. The two sides subsequently drew applause from international viewers with joint entrances under the Korean Peninsula flag at the 2002 Summer Asian Games in Busan, the 2003 Winter Asian Games in Aomori and Summer Universiade in Daegu, the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, the 2005 East Asian Games in Macau, and the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin.

North Korean cheerleaders will also be able to view the event for the first time in years, with the North agreeing at the talks on Jan. 17 to send a squad of around 230 people to cheer jointly with South Korean supporters. North Korea has sent large cheering groups to three South Korean events in the past, the first at the 2002 Asian Games in Busan and the most recent at the 2005 Asian Athletics Championships in Incheon.

An additional agreement to guarantee cheering activities by Zainichi Koreans affiliated with Chongryon suggests an opportunity for unity at the Pyeongchang Olympics as South and North Korean supporters come together with ethnic Koreans in Japan. Chongryon previously sent a cheering squad of around 440 people during the 2002 Asian Games in Busan, where North Korea sent its own athletes and a cheering squad of some 650 people.

By Jung In-hwan, staff reporter

Please direct questions or comments to [english@hani.co.kr

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