How the two Koreas got a sporting chance for peace

Chandigarh, April 30

How big a role did sport play in the peace agreement between North and South Korea? North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un and South Korean president Moon Jae-in did not talk about this at all after they agreed to work towards long-term peace. However, International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach has claimed that this year’s Winter Olympics, held in Pyeongchang in South Korea, “opened the door” for the historic summit between the leaders of the two Koreas. 

He does have a point: The two Koreas marched under a united flag at the opening ceremony of Pyeongchang 2018 in February. Of much greater significance was the joint women’s ice hockey team put up by the two countries. In a deal brokered by IOC, 12 players from North Korea were part of the unified team that competed as ‘Korea’.

Oly dream

Later in March, Bach met Kim Jong-un during a football match in Pyongyang in North Korea. Bach later said that the two had a 30-minute formal meeting, followed by 45 minutes of “casual discussions”. 

Bach said the North Korean leader supported a plan to have North Korean athletes compete in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and the 2022 Beijing Winter Games.

Divided countries

Bach himself competed as a fencer for West Germany in the Olympics, winning a gold medal in the 1976 Olympics. He says that his personal experience of representing a divided Germany gives him a special understanding of the situation in the divided Korea.

“In such a situation of a divided country, a part of the population has only seen the country being divided and doesn’t have the experience of being one nation,” Bach said earlier this year. “You need to explain and you need to look into the future. You need to put it into perspective of the overall development of the world. You cannot expect 100 percent support from the very beginning.”

Peace through sport

“The IOC initiated the ‘Olympic Korean Peninsula Declaration’ in a meeting on January 20, 2018, with both Governments and the two National Olympic Committees,” Bach wrote in a comment peace published to coincide with the peace talks. “With this declaration, the IOC made possible not only the participation of North Korean athletes in Pyeongchang, but also the joint march behind one flag at the Opening Ceremony, as well as the formation of a unified women’s ice hockey team.”

Now the South Korean news agency Yonhap has reported that Seoul’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has asked 40 national governing bodies if they would be willing to compete alongside athletes from North Korea at the Jakarta Asian Games, to be held from August 18 to September 2. 

The associations of basketball, canoeing, gymnastics, judo, rowing, soft tennis and table tennis have showed interest in pursuing this possibility, Yonhap reported.

Just as sport played a role in the dismantling of Apartheid in South Africa, it seems sport did play a role in bringing the two Koreas closer. — TNS