South Korean Olympic chief clinging to hope for North Korean participation in Tokyo 2020

Lee Kee-heung, head of the Korean Sport & Olympic Committee, speaks during a recent interview at his office in Seoul. Yonhap

South Korea's top Olympic official is holding on to hope that North Korea will change its mind and participate in the Tokyo Summer Games after all ― however slim those chances may be.

Lee Kee-heung, head of the Korean Sport & Olympic Committee (KSOC) and a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), said in a recent interview that North Korea's status for Tokyo 2020 will remain up in the air until July 5. That's the deadline for countries to submit their Olympic entries.

"My understanding is that the IOC and our government have been persuading North Korea to take part in the Tokyo Olympics," Lee said last Wednesday. "Since July 5 is the entry deadline, we must wait until that point to see exactly where things stand."

North Korea announced in April that it would not send its athletes to Tokyo for the July 23-Aug. 8 Olympics, citing COVID-19 infection concerns. Earlier this month, the IOC said it would reallocate quota places that had been originally given to North Korea.

There is a recent precedent for North Korea making a last-minute decision to participate in an Olympics. In his annual New Year's Day address in 2018, about a month before the PyeongChang Winter Games in South Korea, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un announced he would have the country's athletes compete south of the border. Within weeks, the two Koreas agreed to a joint march at the opening ceremony and also put together a unified team in women's hockey.

On Japan's showing of the South Korean islets of Dokdo as its territory on a map on the Olympic website, Lee said he has remained in contact with the IOC.

"I've been pushing the IOC to force Tokyo's organizing committee to remove that designation," Lee said.

Dokdo has long been a recurring source of tension between South Korea and Japan, with the latter laying claim to the East Sea islets in school textbooks and policy papers, among others.

Lee insisted boycotting the Olympics on the grounds of Japan's latest claim ― a possibility raised in the political circle ― wouldn't be fair to athletes.

"We must separate sports from politics and must try to resolve this matter through diplomacy," Lee said. "When we consider athletes who've been preparing for this competition for more than five years, boycotting can't be an option."

In his role as the head of the national Olympic body, Lee said he will spare no efforts to help South Korean athletes in any way possible.

"As the Olympic Games were postponed by a year, our athletes have had to deal with mental and physical fatigue," Lee said. "Athletic abilities alone won't be enough. We'll be serving them at least one Korean meal per day, and we'll have local volunteers on hand to support them. We'll also dispatch three infectious disease experts to Tokyo so that they can help with coronavirus-related situations." (Yonhap)

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