North Korean athletes refuse to stand with South Korean competitors on the podium at the 2023 Asian Games.
Shortly
- North Korean shooters decline to stand with South Koreans on the podium, to sum up
- Athletes from North Korea disregard South Koreans at the 2023 Asian Games
- Gold was won by South Korea in the 10m running target competition.
Following their defeat in the 2023 Asian Games men's team shooting final, three North Korean shooters refused to take part in a group photo with South Korean participants.
After winning a silver medal in the men's team 10m running target event, they made a point of breaking the custom of facing the winning country's flag, in this case South Korea's, during the national anthem.
The North Korean trio decided to skip the customary group photo with the other medalists before the awkward situation that followed. The South Korean winners and Indonesian bronze medalists took the first spot on the podium, while the North Korean competitors, Kwon Kwang-il, Pak Myong-won, and Songjun Yu, choose not to.
By patting one of the North Koreans on the shoulder and attempting to strike up a conversation, a South Korean made an appropriate move to correct the situation. The North Koreans, on the other hand, chose to remain silent and avoid any contact with their rivals in the adjacent countries.
This noteworthy incident at the Fuyang Yinhu Sports Centre outside of the Chinese city of Fuyang adds to the growing list of issues facing the North Korean team, which has been routinely benched.
North Korea's flag will be permitted to fly at the Games in spite of the recent Olympic Council of Asia (OCA) announcement that it will not be allowed to do so because of North Korea's violation of international anti-doping rules.
The Hangzhou Asian Games are North Korea's chance for a return after their expulsion from the International Olympic Committee (IOC), and it will be their first appearance at an international multisport event since the Jakarta 2018 edition. After failing to send a team to the Tokyo Summer Olympics as a result of the ban, North Korea was unable to participate in the Beijing Winter Games last year.
The two Koreas are officially still at war as a result of the Korean War's unsettled status, which resulted in an armistice rather than a peace treaty in 1953, which feeds the ongoing conflicts cast on the international arena.
