North & South

Tensions between the two Koreas have often spilled over into the Olympic Movement. As ANOC prepares to meet in Seoul, Philip Barker looks back on an eventful past.

The Association of National Olympic Committees General Assembly in Seoul is sure to evoke memories of 34 years ago, when the South Korean capital hosted what many regarded at the time as the greatest ever Olympics.

Outside the main stadium used for those Games, there is a statue of marathon runner Sohn Kee-chung. He was the first Korean to win an Olympic gold medal and remains as a revered figure in the nation’s sporting history.

Yet his victory in the 1936 Olympic marathon in Berlin was achieved against a bitter backdrop, as Korea had been under Japanese occupation for more than a quarter of a century. Sohn was ordered to run in a Japanese vest.

“I ran without a country, it was heartbreaking,” he said many years later.

When the Koreans finally took part in the Olympics under their own name in London in 1948, it was Sohn who proudly carried their flag into Wembley Stadium at the Opening Ceremony.

The years which followed were charged with tension and uncertainty, as war raged on the Korean Peninsula.

Tensions between North and South also simmered in the sporting arena, as the International Olympic Committee tried to broker an agreement to allow athletes from both sides of the border to compete.

The North applied for recognition at the 1956 IOC Session in Melbourne - a time when the Olympic Movement had achieved an accommodation of sorts between East and West Germany.

The minutes of the meeting record IOC chancellor Otto Mayer suggesting that “similar arrangements be made in Korea”.

Romania’s Alexandru Șiperco quickly insisted “it would be impossible to make such an arrangement”, however.

Despite this claim, North Korea was given provisional recognition by the IOC in 1957, although it came attached with a proviso.

“Only if they cooperate in forming one single team”, was the demand from the Olympic top table.

Every time it seemed that a breakthrough in doing this was close, political problems prevented a solution.

It had seemed likely for the Tokyo Games in 1964, and the world held its breath in anticipation of watching the new North Korean running sensation Sin Kim-dan.

He had posted world record times and won gold medals at 200 metres, 400m and 800m at the Games of New Emerging Forces in the Indonesian capital Jakarta in 1963.

Those Games were held outside the jurisdiction of the IOC and the world governing body for athletics. Any athlete participating was warned that they would face a ban from competing at Tokyo 1964.

When Sin was banned, the entire North Korean team withdrew in protest and they did not appear at the Olympics until Munich 1972.

In the meantime, Seoul was selected as the host city of the 1970 Asian Games. Trouble followed, however, and two years before the Games were due to take place, South Korea announced it was pulling out because of financial and political problems.

The theme of Korean unification found resonance on both sides of the 38th parallel.

Only rarely did the two Koreas meet face to face in sport, although at the 1978 Asian Games the countries played out a 0-0 draw in the men’s football final. The gold medal in Bangkok was shared.

PHILIP BARKER HISTORIAN, INSIDETHEGAMES

In 1990, a series of re-unification matches were arranged in Seoul and Pyongyang, but the moment which changed everything for Korean sport came on the last day of September in 1981.

Many in the sporting world were astonished - or even alarmed - when Seoul achieved an emphatic victory over the Japanese city of Nagoya, the only other candidate, by 52 votes to 27 to win the rights to the 1988 Games.

The vote was taken at the 1981 IOC Session in the German spa town of Baden-Baden.

Remarkably, South Korea had only hosted a major global sporting event for the first time three years earlier.

The 1978 World Shooting Championships had taken place in Seoul and proved to be the catalyst for the Olympic bid.

Civil unrest and the assassination of South Korean President Park Chung-hee threatened to foil the candidacy, but the bid was presented just in time.

Among those instrumental in its success was Kim Un-yong, a Government official and taekwondo enthusiast who described himself as “an operator”.

Kim was arguably the first Korean to make a significant impact in the heady world of international sports administration.

He founded the World Taekwondo Federation and established the Kukkiwon as a world headquarters for the sport.

In the late 1970s, he became an increasingly important figure in the body now known as the Global Association of International Sports Federations, later becoming its President.

This meant he attended the inaugural World Games in 1981, which he opened in Santa Clara in California as the founding head.

Kim forged a close relationship with the new IOC President, Juan Antonio Samaranch.

The road to the 1988 Games was fraught with problems, not least because South Korea did not have diplomatic relations with many of the countries in the Soviet Bloc.

Kim was an integral figure in heading off the possibility of a boycott. Within a month of winning the rights to host the Olympics, Seoul had also been selected to host the 1986 Asian Games which would prove to be an important dress rehearsal.

During these Games, the IOC Executive Board arrived for a meeting in South Korea for the first time.

The agenda reveals long discussions about the demands from the North to co-host events in 1988.

Many felt that this idea was a non-starter, but a number of meetings were held between both sides before the idea finally stalled. North Korea was one of the few nations to stay away when the Games finally began.

A few days before the sport started, an IOC Session was held in Seoul which was a significant meeting for Kim. He was elevated to the Executive Board, only two years after becoming an IOC member.

A few days later, Kim saw his dreams for taekwondo become a reality. A spectacular display was a memorable set piece at the Opening Ceremony, while the arrival of the Olympic Flame after an emotional journey through South Korea was a moment to electrify the stadium.

The bearer was none other than Sohn, now aged 76.

The cauldron was ignited by a teacher, an athlete and a dancer, representing the pillars of the Games.

Seoul harnessed the symbolic messages of the Olympic Movement in a way that others were to emulate.

The Games proved a great success, cementing Kim’s place at the top Olympic table.

His Olympic credentials were then enhanced further in 1993 when he was elected as a vice-president.

Then, at Sydney 2000, the two Koreas finally marched under the unification flag for the first time at an Olympic Opening Ceremony.

Although the delegations were largely kept separate during the Games, the gesture was hailed as a great symbolic act and the two Korean teams at least paraded together at major Games until 2006.

When Samaranch finally stood down, Kim ran against four other candidates for the top job at the IOC Session in Moscow in 2001.

The field included Canada’s Dick Pound, Pál Schmitt of Hungary and American Anita DeFrantz, all long serving IOC members.

At one stage Kim was considered a likely successor but he was then censured as part of the disciplinary action in the wake of the Salt Lake City bribery scandal.

Seoul had hosted an IOC Session in 1999, when the fallout from the Salt Lake revelations was still on everyone’s lips.

Two years later Kim polled 21 votes in the first round, going on to finish second with 23 votes behind Belgium’s Jacques Rogge.

The shadow cast by Salt Lake City - where members were found to have taken gifts and bribes in the bidding process for the 2002 Winter Olympics - was felt by many to have affected Kim’s chances of winning.

North and South Korea famously marched together at the Sydney 2000 Opening Ceremony. Photo: Getty Images

PHILIP BARKER HISTORIAN, INSIDETHEGAMES

North Korea's cheerleaders became well known for their displays at Pyeongchang 2018. Photo: Getty Images

A combined women's ice hockey team formed for the

Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics. Photo: Getty Images

He was later jailed for two-and-a-half years in South Korea on corruption charges linked to his leadership of taekwondo and the South Korean NOC. He protested his innocence to the end and died in 2017, aged 86.

Kim saw taekwondo become a full Olympic sport at Sydney 2000 and his last great ambition was to see the Olympics return to South Korea.

Pyeongchang first bid for the 2010 edition of the Winter Games and advanced to the second round before losing by three votes to Vancouver.

Another attempt was made for the 2014 Games, but there was similar disappointment as the Koreans missed out 51-47 to Sochi.

A third bid was made and at the 2011 IOC Session in Cape Town, Pyeongchang was finally successful as it saw off bids from Munich and the French resort of Annecy in the race for 2018.

As the new Olympic year dawned, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un spoke of “glorifying a meaningful year”.

His New Year message also included a pledge for the Winter Games in Pyeongchang.

“As for the Winter Olympic Games to be held soon in South Korea, we earnestly wish success,” Kim, who was under increasing Western pressure due to his missile programme, said.

“Since we are compatriots of the same blood as South Koreans, it is natural for us to share their pleasure over the auspicious event and help them.”

High level meetings in Lausanne soon took place and made clear exactly what was planned with the secretive north.

“As you know from the popular Korean folk song Arirang, it is a long journey across the cold mountains,” IOC President Thomas Bach, who later met with the North Korean leader in Pyongyang, said.

An announcement of an “Olympic Korean Peninsula Declaration” was made.

The Games in Pyeongchang would feature 22 athletes from the North - in figure skating, short track, cross-country skiing and Alpine skiing.

The big news was that 12 players would join the South Koreans to form a unified squad in women’s ice hockey.

They soon arrived to begin training with their new team-mates, with three players due to be included in each match. The final selection rested with Sarah Murray, the Canadian head coach, however.

The team wore distinct uniforms, emblazoned with the blue symbol of Korean unification, and even had their own acronym - COR.

Just as it had been in 1988, the arrival of the flame was a highly emotional moment as it was once again an expression of hope for peace.

The torch was carried towards the cauldron by ice hockey players Park Jong-ah of South Korea and Jong Su-hyon from the North. "We thought it would be a dramatic moment to go up together,” said ceremonies director Song Seung-hwan. “My heart was overwhelmed.”

At the Opening Ceremony, South Korean leader Moon Jae-in welcomed Kim Jong-un's sister Kim Yo-jong to the Presidential box.

A group of North Korean cheerleaders also arrived, becoming celebrities in their own right with their matching uniforms and synchronised displays.

The proposed joint anthem, Arirang, had already been referenced by Bach. It is a folk song popular in both North and South Korea. The ice hockey team lost all five of its matches, scoring one goal, but the albeit brief events in 2018 again offered hope for the future.

Later in 2018, a joint Korean team competed in three sports at the Asian Games in Jakarta and Palembang. A historic gold medal was won in women’s dragon boat, and the unified flag was raised.

This achievement was widely lauded, but North Korea’s relations with the IOC, so heavily promoted during Pyeongchang 2018, have now soured.

The country was suspended after failing to appear at the re-arranged Tokyo 2020 Games - a decision it blamed on COVID-19. It meant North Korea also missed Beijing 2022, with the ban not yet lifted.

ANOC’s gathering in Seoul was originally scheduled for last year, before coronavirus forced its relocation to Crete.

Organisers in the “land of the morning calm” will hope that holding it this year will be a sign of a return to normality.