North Korea's Olympic suspension to end on Dec. 31

North Korea

Published: 07 Dec. 2022, 15:44 Updated: 07 Dec. 2022, 17:43

North Korea's Olympic suspension to end on Dec. 31

Athletes from North and South Korea enter together under the Korean Unification Flag at the opening ceremony of the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics — the last Olympic games in which the North participated. [YONHAP]

North Korea's suspension from the Olympic Games, which was imposed after the country refused to participate in the Tokyo Summer Games in 2021, will be lifted at the end of the year.

The suspension "will end automatically on December 31, 2022,” James Macleod, the director of Olympic Solidarity, said Tuesday in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Olympic Solidarity is an International Olympic Committee (IOC) initiative that arranges support for National Olympic Committees (NOC).

The decision to not extend the North’s suspension means that country could make an appearance at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.

The IOC suspended the North’s National Olympic Committee (NOC) in September last year after it was the only country to not show up to the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, which were delayed to July 2021 as a result of the global Covid-19 pandemic that began in early 2020.

The North informed the IOC in April last year that it would not participate in the Tokyo Summer Games due to Covid-19 concerns and refused to attend despite being “provided reassurances for the holding of safe Games and offered constructive proposals to find an appropriate and tailor-made solution,” the IOC said in explaining its decision to prohibit the North's participation.

Rule 27.3 of the Olympic Charter states that “each NOC is obliged to participate in the Games of the Olympiad by sending athletes.”

As a result of the IOC suspension, the North was forced to sit out the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing — a consequence that the regime’s Olympic committee and sports ministry blamed on “hostile forces” and the global pandemic.

The last time the North refused to participate in the Olympics was the 1988 Summer Olympics, held in Seoul.

North Korea boycotted those games after its demands for special opening and closing ceremonies and that 11 of the 23 Olympic sports events be hosted on its territory were not accepted.

The North hosted the World Festival of Youth and Students the following year. It spent a quarter of its yearly budget on hosting the 1989 festival, and the country’s economy collapsed a few years later.

As a result of the lifting of the suspension, financial support from the IOC’s Olympic Solidarity fund to the North Korean Olympic committee is expected to resume.

Olympic Solidarity assistance goes to athlete development programs that promote the training of not only athletes, and also coaches and sports administrators, particularly in countries that lack resources.

The executive board of the IOC is meeting in Lausanne from Monday to Wednesday.

BY MICHAEL LEE [lee.junhyuk@joongang.co.kr]