The Skeptic Canary

The blog of Dr Tom Williamson, atheist, humanist, skeptic and Norwich City fan!

Flag controversy on the first day of the Olympic games

2 comments

Day one of the London 2012 Olympics. A chance for the UK to show itself off to the world. All eyes watching. You’d hope that for the games these three words would be the mantra of everyone involved:

Don’t screw up.

So, what happens on the first day? In the women’s football, North Korea play Columbia at Hampden Park, Glasgow. The North Korean players are shown one by one on the big screen, complete with the full name of the country, Korea DPR (Democratic People’s Republic). There is just one embarrassing, glaringly obvious problem. There is a flag on the screen. The flag of SOUTH Korea.

korea wrong flag

Hampden Park shows the wrong flag of Korea at the Olympics



This is a big deal. The two Koreas went to war in 1950, and to this day North and South Korea are divided between communist and capitalist ideals. To confuse the two flags is just really stupid, as you can see they look nothing like each other.

Flag of North Korea

Flag of North Korea



Flag of South Korea

Flag of South Korea



If this sort of blunder is going to happen on the very first day, I worry for the rest of the Olmypics.

Written by Tom

July 25th, 2012 at 9:19 pm

Posted in flags

2 Responses to 'Flag controversy on the first day of the Olympic games'

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  1. For anyone who doesn’t see the problem … It’s a bit like showing the England flag at a Scottish match ;-)

    Colin Hall

    26 Jul 12 at 7:56 am

  2. Wow. Embarrassing British organisation.

    It’s quite possibly the worst mistake anyone could make in relation to a country’s flag. I can’t believe anyone involved in organising an INTERNATIONAL event could be so stupid.

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