London organizers apologize for flag blunder
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E-mail Shanghai Daily, July 26, 2012
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North Korean players protested after seeing South Korea's flag mistakenly displayed on the big screens. |
The organizers of 2012 London Olympic Games has issued a statement of apology after mistakenly using the national flag of South Korea for the DPR Korean team before an Olympics group match of women's football yesterday.
"Today, ahead of the women's football match at Hampden Park, the Republic of Korea flag was shown on a big-screen video package instead of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea flag," said the statement issued by the London Organizing Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games.
"Clearly, that is a mistake, we will apologize to the team and the National Olympic Committee and steps will be taken to ensure this does not happen again."
The match was scheduled to start at 7:45 pm local time but was delayed for one hour and five minutes as the wrathful DPRK officials and players refused to compete. The match finally kicked off at 8:50.
When the match finally started, North Korea came out pressing to win 2-0 with goals by Kim Song Hui in the 39th and 86th minutes.
"If this matter couldn't have been resolved, then I thought going on is nonsense," coach Sin Ui Gun said through an interpreter after North Korea won 2-0. "We were angry because our players were introduced as if they were from South Korea, which may affect us very greatly as you might know."
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