The “shot” singer, a single flag and additional quotas. What you need to know about North Korea's participation in the Olympics

The women's hockey match between Japan and the unified Korean team brought together a full stadium. The SE special correspondent spent all three periods in the sector with fans from the DPRK. It was cool!

Group B
Korea - Japan - 1:4 0:2, 1:0, 0:2)
Goals: Kubo - 2 (H. Toko, Ukita), 1:07 - 0:1. Ono - 1 (bol., Koike, Yoneyama), 3:58 - 0:2. Griffin - 1 (Park Yoon Jung), 29:31 - 1:2. Koike - 1 (bol., Hosoyamada, Yoneyama), 51:42 - 1:3. Ukita - 2 (p.v.), 58:33 - 1:4.
Goalkeepers: Shin So Jung (57:48 - 58:33) - Konishi.
Fine: 6 - 4.
Throws: 13 (4+3+6) - 44 (13+13+18).
Judges: Fialova, Hertrich.

Dmitry ZELENOV from Pyeongchang

I have never seen such queues at any competition. The approach to the Kwandon hockey arena was as crowded as before the opening ceremony. And this is women's hockey, Korea - Japan.

Queues before the match Korea - Japan. Photo by Dmitry ZELENOV, "SE"

The Koreans have a united team. This was done within beautiful story about reconciliation and reunion, it was specially invented for. Back in the fall, they wanted to cancel the Games due to aggravation between the North and South, and now - a general parade at the opening ceremony, a flag with the silhouette of the peninsula, and now - hockey.

They say that the peace process has confused all the cards for the team South Korea. Allegedly, she was well prepared, but 12 people from the north were added to the application, and they weakened the team. Maybe so. In any case, a united Korea lost to the Japanese - 1:4. But this seems to be a case where athletic performance has taken a backseat.

The stadium is packed, every action of the Korean hockey players is greeted with roars, and thousands of people wave the flags of a unified Korea - a blue peninsula on a white background. Now I also have one - it was given to me by comrades from the DPRK.

Dmitry ZELENOV (left) and the Koreans. Photo by Dmitry ZELENOV, "SE"

Beautiful girls in identical hats and sweatshirts - white, blue and red - organizedly occupy two central sectors opposite each other. There are about 80 people in total. On the sides sit older men - accompanying people. Perhaps in rank. The girls walk in formation - in pairs, this also speaks of military training. But their faces are open, northern women smile at passers-by. To communicate - no. This is difficult. They were seated in such a way that the perimeter was guarded by those same men.

Fans of the unified Korean national team. Photo by Dmitry ZELENOV, "SE"

The match begins, and with it the show begins. The super-harmonious singing of the North Korean sectors attracts no less attention than what is happening on the ice. The stadium applauds each song as well as the successful actions of the team.

In the middle of the second period, volunteers were forced to intervene - there were so many people wanting to get closer to the fans from the DPRK that they interfered with watching hockey - they stood in the aisles and took photographs. Again, the North Korean fans are not embarrassed - they wave at the cameras and laugh. And new songs are drawn in, one more beautiful than the other.

What are they singing? I ask a lady from South Korea who is sitting in the next sector about this.

These are popular folk songs that are also known in South Korea,” she says. - We even sing along.

- How do you generally feel about the idea of ​​a united team?

Very good! This important step on the road to Korean reunification.

- The coherence of the fans is sometimes scary. Aren't you scared?

Oh no, it's not scary, it's beautiful. Honestly, I think these are professional singers, they sing very well.

- Would you like to talk to them?

Yes, but I don’t think they can.

Other Koreans react to such support in different ways. Some are taking pictures with interest, some are smiling, and some are waving the usual South Korean flags.

The main thing is that there is no propaganda,” a young guy, a resident of Gangneung and a big hockey fan, tells me. - It’s good that they made a single team, but now everyone is looking at these fans, and not at the game.

Fans of the unified Korean national team. Photo by Dmitry ZELENOV, "SE"

The match ends, and with hundreds of selfies in their background, the ideal sector gets up and leaves. If North Korea wanted to show a new side of itself at this Olympics, the unique country succeeded. Surely some people will find these songs creepy - everything is so synchronized, harmonious, some kind of dystopia.

But the main thing is different. Fans from both antagonist countries supported one team that evening. Let it be in different ways, but one and the same - Korea.

North Korea and South Korea agreed for the first time in 12 years attend the opening ceremony of the 2018 Winter Olympics South Korean Pyeongchang under one flag.

Korea will fly the Korean Unification Flag at the opening ceremony, which athletes have already used in Sydney in 2000, Athens in 2004 and Turin in 2006.

In addition, North Korea agreed to send its delegation and compete at the Games of the unified women's hockey team.

Korrespondent.net looked into why Kim Jong-un softened his militant rhetoric.

What Seoul and Pyongyang agreed on

Negotiations between representatives of the DPRK and South Korea on a joint exit lasted a week in the village of Panmunjeong on the fire demarcation line.

As a result, Korea agreed that the joint delegation at the opening ceremony of the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, will take place under one flag.

Presumably this will be the same flag under which the delegations of the DPRK and South Korea entered the opening ceremonies of the Olympic Games in 2000, 2004 and 2006. At that time, the joint participation of the DPRK and South Korea in the Olympics was limited to the passage of a single delegation at the opening ceremony.

It is a white cloth with a blue outline of the Korean Peninsula depicted on it.

After 2006, the South and North Korean flags were not used for the Olympics, and at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, relations between Pyongyang and Seoul seriously deteriorated, so the North Korean delegation refused to march alongside South Korean athletes.

The combined women's hockey team of the two Koreas will also perform at the Games. However, the coach of the South Korean team said that combining the teams could put an end to Seoul's chances of winning a gold medal in this sport.

Let us note that both countries have never achieved significant success in this sport, performing mainly in the second division. The South Korean women's team was allowed to participate in the Olympics only because this country is the host of the Games.

In total, North Korea will send a delegation of 550 people to the Olympics in South Korea, including athletes, officials, spectators, artists and journalists.

New Year's Kim Jong-un

The reason for the shift in relations between both countries was the New Year's address by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. The North Korean leader said that the country would like to take part in the Olympics, which will be held in Pyeongchang, and is ready for negotiations.

Seoul responded to Kim Jong-un’s words, and on January 9, North and South Korea held negotiations for the first time since December 2015. Negotiations were held at the level of ministers responsible for the national association.

The topic was the DPRK's previously stated readiness to send its athletes to the Winter Olympics. Political issues were not raised.

At the end of the talks, North Korea said it would send athletes, a support team and a delegation of high-ranking officials to the Olympics in South Korea.

Pyongyang also announced that they intend to send not only athletes, but also artistic groups to South Korea. Seoul generally approved this proposal and promised to lift sanctions against the “northerners” for the duration of the Olympics and Paralympics.

In Washington, in connection with the agreements reached, they agreed to wait until the end of the competition and postpone joint exercises with South Korea.

How strong is North Korea?

On summer Olympic Games in the team event, the North Koreans had a total of 54 medals. This is much more than larger countries such as India or Nigeria.

Most of the country's Olympic successes come from weightlifting. North Korean weightlifters set three world and two Olympic records.

At the last Games in Rio de Janeiro, they won seven medals, including two gold, placing the DPRK in the middle of the list in the final team standings.

North Korean women's soccer team/Getty

In terms of football, the North Korean women's team is ranked 11th in the FIFA world rankings. And although the team did not qualify for the 2019 World Cup, having failed the qualifying tournament, it managed to win the East Asian Cup in December last year.

The men's football team has only taken part in two world championships in its entire history. She is currently ranked 126th in the world rankings.

In the last international game, the DPRK tied with the Chinese team 1:1. Now the North Koreans are coached by the Norwegian Jorn Andersen.

Not everyone is happy about North Korea's participation in the Winter Games.

Unified flag

There will be no “north” and “south” at the Olympic opening ceremony. Athletes will march under the Unification Flag, which depicts the Korean Peninsula. The national song “Arirang” will be the anthem of the procession of neighboring countries. The sign carried by the person opening the parade will read "Korea."

South and North Korea have been using sports competitions to show their reconciliation since the early 90s. As a single team they entered the 1991 World Championships. table tennis and the World Youth Football Championship.

Photo: © Vladimir Rys/Bongarts/Getty Images

At the opening ceremonies of the Olympics, Koreans also already acted as a united front under the Unification flag. This happened at the Summer Games in 2000 and 2004 and at the Winter Games in 2006 in Turin.

Residents of South Korea did not like the current collaboration with their neighbors. According to polls, more than 70 percent did not support the idea of ​​holding a common flag at the opening ceremony of the Olympics.

"Resurrected" singer

Photo: © Kim Jae-Myeong/Getty Images News/Donga Daily via Getty Images

South Koreans greeted representatives of the DPRK with protests in which demonstrators burned posters depicting Kim Jong-un. The delegation of neighbors was headed by singer Hyun Song Wol, who was... shot several years ago.

The story is confusing. And to this day, several rumors from the artist’s biography have not been dispelled.

In 2012, by order of Kim Jong-un, the girl band Moranbong was formed in the DPRK. The group is sometimes called the "North Korean SpiceGirls." The selection of the team was allegedly carried out by the leader of the DPRK himself. Songs and appearance The members were very different from other musical artists in the DPRK. Girls could perform in short skirts and sing in pop style. Of course, all texts were approved in advance by the party. The purpose of creating the group is to modernize the country’s image in the eyes of the world community.

But in 2013, Hyun Song Wol and 11 other artists from the orchestra she led were executed on the orders of Kim Jong-un. This was reported by The Telegraph. Even the reasons and method of execution were announced:

Reason 1. Hyun Song Wol was found distributing pornography, and some artists were found to have copies of the Bible.

Reason 2. Hyon Song Wol was Kim Jong-un's girlfriend, which the wife of the DPRK leader, who also used to be a singer, did not like.

Execution. The artists were shot with a machine gun in front of their close relatives. After the execution, the relatives were sent to labor camps.

Photo: © Korea Pool/Getty Images News/Getty Images

The Telegraph's information was dispelled by the singer's first public appearance. Now Hyun Song Wol is called one of the most influential women in the country. It was she who was entrusted with leading the delegation to South Korea (for the first time in 4 years), where she inspected the venues for a performance with her group Moranbong. In addition to this team, the taekwondo team will perform a demonstration program at the Winter Olympics.

Quotas for athletes who do not qualify

Figure skating

Tae Ok Yeom and Choo Sik Kim / Photo: © Atsushi Tomura/Getty Images Sport/Getty Images

North Korean athletes did not compete at the Sochi Olympics - no one was able to earn a quota for their country. Figure skaters Tae Ok Yeom and Chu Sik Kim received a sports license for the PyeongChang Games. You can read more about how they did this.

Kim and Yem could go to the Olympics only after the approval of the head of state. It was received in Kim Jong-un's New Year's address to the citizens of the DPRK. But another problem arose: the skaters did not have time to register for the Games on time. On January 20, the IOC made an exception for the North Koreans, allowing them to enter despite the missed deadline.

Hockey

The first athletes from the DPRK to come to South Korea for the Olympics were hockey players. The owners greeted them quite cordially: with flowers and wide smiles. But it's not that simple.

Photo: © Song Kyung-Seok-Pool/Getty Images News/Getty Images

The women's hockey teams of the two countries will be united into one and will compete under a flag with the image of the Korean Peninsula. On the one hand, the South Korean team was clearly not a medal contender. On the other hand, the hosts wanted, if not to win, then to perform with dignity. home ice. , strings and combinations were played. Moreover, the lineup cannot be more than 22 people, which means that someone suddenly had to forget about the dream of performing in their homeland.

“It’s hard because the hockey players got a place in the lineup and thought they deserved to play in the Olympics. Then we added new people. It definitely hurts my players,” said South Korea head coach Sarah Murray.

The last hockey match between the women's teams of the two Koreas ended with a score of 3:0 in favor of the hosts of the upcoming Olympics. It is planned that 12 hockey players from the DPRK will play for the unified team.

Other sports

Photo: © Adam Pretty/Getty Images Sport/Getty Images

Eight more North Korean athletes received additional quotas from the International Olympic Committee: three each in alpine skiing and cross-country skiing, as well as two in short track speed skating. All of them, like a couple of figure skaters, will compete at the Games under the flag of the DPRK. In total, a delegation of 150 North Korean athletes and fans will come to Pyeongchang.

How will the results of the combined women's team and athletes from the DPRK be reflected in the medal standings? Nobody thinks about it. Because the chances of North Korean participants winning Olympic medals are practically zero.

In the entire history of the Winter Olympics, athletes from the DPRK have won two medals: silver in speed skating in 1964 and bronze in short track speed skating in 1992.

Photo: Cameron Spencer/Getty Images Sport/Getty Images, Vladimir Rys/Bongarts/Getty Images, Kim Jae-Myeong/Getty Images News/Donga Daily via Getty Images, Korea Pool/Getty Images News/Getty Images, Atsushi Tomura/Getty Images Sport/ Getty Images, Song Kyung-Seok-Pool/Getty Images News/Getty Images, Adam Pretty/Getty Images Sport/Getty Images

The world community fears that North Korean athletes who did not win a single medal at the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang will face the same fate as the football players in 1966 - a concentration camp.

The most infamous case is the North Korean soccer team that made it to the second round of the 1966 FIFA World Cup. After losing to Portugal with a score of 5:3, Korean athletes who were seen having fun with local women were arrested upon returning to their homeland, writes The Sun.

Former leader Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of the current leader of the DPRK, ordered them to be sent to a concentration camp.

North Korean defector Kang Chol-Hwan claims he met the team while they were held at Yodoka Prison, or Camp 15, a facility designated for political prisoners.

In his book Aquariums of Pyongyang, he claims that footballer Park Seung-Zin became famous because of his ability to endure torture.

Another prisoner was given the nickname "Cockroach" because he ate insects to avoid starvation. He often ended up in solitary confinement.

Although this case is the most famous fact of the country’s harsh attitude towards the “failure” of athletes, it is far from the only one.

FIFA has been forced to investigate reports that another North Korean football team was "punished" after the 2010 World Cup.

Similar treatment awaited the Olympic team, which went to Rio 2016 and returned with two gold medals.

"Those who win medals will be rewarded with better housing allocations, better rations... and possibly other gifts from the regime," said North Korea expert Toshimitsu Shigemura.

Defender Kim Hyun-soo, who fled the country in 2009, said both athletes and coaches were punished with months of hard work because they did not live up to expectations.

According to a UN report, there are dozens of secret camps modeled on Stalin’s in North Korea, where political opponents of the leader are subjected to unimaginable torture.

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The 2018 Winter Olympics started on February 9. It takes place in the South Korean city of Pyeongchang, which is located just 80 km from the border with the DPRK.

In 2017, after President Donald Trump came to power, relations between the United States and North Korea worsened. This directly affected the desire of foreigners to come to the Games, but Seoul guarantees unprecedented security. There was a lot of controversy about the possible participation of the DPRK in the Games, but the results that were achieved impressed the whole world.

Pyeongchang 2018

The decision to hold the Olympics in South Korea was made in 2009 - the country won the vote, beating Germany and France as other contenders. The competition will not be held in the capital, as originally planned, but in the resort city of Pyeongchang, which is located north of Seoul. The grand opening of the Olympics took place on February 9, and despite the seven-degree frost, the stands of the outdoor stadium were filled. Ceremony spectators were given blankets, hats, and special heating pads, which turned out to be very useful - especially considering that the event lasted two and a half hours, and it was necessary to arrive early.

Before the start of the Games, South Korean organizers resolved problems with transportation and accommodation of foreigners, which was a cause for concern. Expressway from Seoul to Pyeongchang railway, the journey takes only an hour. In addition, part local residents agreed to rent out vacant apartments and houses in which the visitors were accommodated.

The international community expressed concerns that security at the Games would be in question due to the aggravated situation with the DPRK.

However, the situation changed dramatically at the beginning of this year, after Pyongyang and Seoul moved towards rapprochement. During the diplomatic negotiations, a number of agreements were reached regarding close cooperation between South and North Korea during the Olympics.

Some of these decisions are rightly called historical.

North Korea at the Winter Olympics

North Korea has confirmed participation in the competition during the Women's Hockey World Cup. In early January, a series of meetings took place between representatives of South and North Korea to discuss the details of the upcoming event. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un said during his New Year's address that Pyongyang would take a course towards rapprochement with the south, and this actually happened.

About ten sessions were held between representatives of the countries, at which important diplomatic decisions were made. The main one was that athletes from North and South Korea united into one team to march at the ceremonial opening of the Games.

They marched in identical uniforms under the flag of a united Korea, closing the parade of teams. Female skiers from South and North Korea also carried the Olympic flame together in the penultimate section to hand it over to the figure skating champion, who completed the ceremony.

However, the truce did not stop there. Female hockey players from North and South Korea have united into one team that will take part in the competition. There were many problems associated with this decision: protests took place in Seoul, and the hockey players themselves faced difficulties due to the difference in the dialects of the Korean language.

The girls in the combined squad have already played one match with Sweden, but did not win. During the competition they will have to meet with fighters from Switzerland and Japan.

The country did not demonstrate any particular sporting success at previous winter competitions. Since 1964, participants in the Winter Olympics have received only two medals - silver and bronze. In summer sports, North Korea's successes are more impressive: athletes earned 54 awards, of which 16 were gold.

The DPRK government places bets on athletes in the categories of figure skating and skiing. At the 2017 World Championships, pair skating athletes took 5th place and received direct qualification for participation in the Olympics.