North Koreans Ri Jong Sik and Kim Kum Yong, silver medalists in mixed doubles table tennis, and South Koreans Lim Jong-hoon and Shin Yu-Bin, bronze medalists, posed together on the podium on Tuesday, July 30 in Paris at the 2024 Olympic Games. A far from trivial photo for these athletes from countries at war.
1 min
The photo taken by South Korean Lim Jong-hoon shows his teammate Shin Yu-bin, as well as the North Korean Olympic vice-champion pair Ri Jong Sik and Kim Kum Yong, as well as the Chinese Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha, gold medalists in the JO 2024.
The moment was captured by a Samsung smartphone, South Korean tech flagship. A selfie with the national flags of the two Koreas and a Samsung phone “, described the popular South Korean daily JongAng Ilbo.
” The True Spirit of the Olympic Games »
North Korea did not send any athletes to the Tokyo Games in 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. This silver medal marks its return to an Olympic podium. I congratulated them when they were presented (on the podium) as silver medalists “, Lim Jong-hoon told South Korean press after the ceremony.
South Korean television channels are replaying the selfie on a loop and analyses of this photo, immortalizing a rare moment of unity between the two Koreas, are pouring in. This is the true spirit of the Olympic Games ” South Korea is still technically at war with the North, after a 1950-53 conflict that ended in an armistice, not a peace treaty.
To consultOlympic Games Results