South/North Korean Flag Mix Up – Biggest Blunder in Olympic History?
This post is part of our special coverage London 2012 Olympics.
The accidental use of the South Korean flag to introduce North Korean athletes at an Olympics women's football match in Glasgow, UK, on 25 July, 2012, sparked an international media frenzy about the mix-up.
The mistake was insulting to both countries, who have a long history of conflict and tension. South Koreans played it cool in response to the London Olympic organizer's profuse apologies, whilst the North Korean team stayed in seclusion at their hotel.
The error has received harsh criticism and has even been named as one of the worst mistakes in the long history of the Olympic Games, since both Koreas are technically at war and the act could be interpreted as raising the flag of the enemy nation.
Flags of the two Koreas, the left side is the North Korean flag and the right side is the South Korean flag. Wikipedia Commons Images.
The South Korean Twittersphere responded rather calmly to the fiasco. Twitter user @__amelie wrote [ko] that although the human error is understandable, it clearly shows the organizer's lack of preparedness:
행사진행하면서 실수없이 완벽하게 진행하기란 어려운 일이지. 근데 북한선수들 경기에 태극기를 올리는건;; 이건 실수라기보다 준비부족 아닌가.
Twitter user @mistyc007 commented [ko] such an act is an insensitive mistake to make:
런던올림픽 여자축구 북한경기인데 태극기가 잘못나가는 실수를.. 아직 런던이 몸이 안풀려서 ㅋㅋㅋㅋ 그래도 민감한 부분을 …
Although international media reported franticly about the mistake, many South Koreans users did not react quite as dramatically. While @k205301 expressed discontent [ko]:
[…] 니네가 기권한다만다하는데 우리도 엄청 기분나쁘거든.
@voiceofmee responded with optimism [ko]:
[…] 뭐 하긴 통일되면 우리 태극기와 애국가를 사용할텐데 미리 사용하는 것도 나쁘진 않을 듯.
Many South Koreans who had already experienced Western confusion between the two Koreas before, recalled those moments. Twitter user @urbancommune wrote [ko]:
[…] 북한팀 항의로 1시간 정도 경기시작 지연. 남북한 헷갈려하던 영국인들이 연상된다. 전적으로 조직위 운영미숙
Famous fashion designer Lee Sang-bong tweeted [ko] about a similar experience he had in Paris:
[…] 나는 1997년 아이엠 에프때 파리 전시회에서 내 부스에 북한 국기가 걸려서 놀라 주최측에 뛰어 갔던 기억이 새롭다.
Countless South Korean bloggers often share their funny and awkward moments caused by foreign nationals’ confusion between the two Koreas. Famous South Korean blogger Madame Paris recently posted a story [ko] on how her French father-in-law used to ask about the health of the deceased North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-il, at almost their every meeting.
This post is part of our special coverage London 2012 Olympics.
8 comments
Thanks for your good posting. Many South Koreans praised London Olympic’s splendid preparations in terms of design, music and the others and in fact I cannot help myself agreeing more. Nevertheless, this is a serious blunder that must be apologized properly considering the spirit of mutual respect of the Game.
I hope, as a Brit, that fulsome apologies were given for this very stupid mistake. I also hope the person responsible has been dismissed or at least demoted to a job where they can do less harm in future. But calling a simple human error the ‘greatest blunder’? Surely the failure to stop a massacre at the Munich Games forty years ago was far more serious?