Olympic organizers have issued an apology after mistakenly introducing South Korean athletes as North Korean during a recent ceremony.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) expressed “deeply apologize” as they posted a statement on X (former Twitter), noting, “We deeply apologize for the mistake that occurred when introducing the Korean team during the opening ceremony broadcast.
This apology was made after South Korean athletes, who were referred to as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea in both French and English, flew their flag on a boat that was cruising down the Seine River on Friday night.
But South Korea is the Republic of Korea.
In response to the event, the South Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism Vice Minister Jang Mi Ran recorded their strong protest over this as the ministry announced in a statement on Saturday.
According to the statement, the ministry urged the Foreign Ministry of South Korea to submit "a strong government-level complaint" to the French authorities.
The statement also asked South Korea's Olympic committee to contact the Paris Games organisers directly to stop similar occurrences from happening again.
The error was described as "clearly deeply regrettable" by IOC spokesman Mark Adams on Saturday.
“An operational mistake was made. We can only apologize, in an evening of so many moving parts. that this mistake was made,” Adams said in response to a question from a South Korean journalist during a news conference Saturday.
It should be noted that since the end of World War II in 1945, the Korean peninsula has been sharply divided into North Korea and South Korea.
