Ulsan’s bid to invite North Korean athletes to national sports festival next year raises debate

Ulsan Mayor Song Cheol-ho, left, shakes hands with Unification Minister Lee In-young at the latter’s office in Seoul, Wednesday. Ulsan City wishes to invite North Korean athletes to the National Sports Festival to be held in the city next year. Yonhap

By Kwon Mee-yoo

The southeastern city of Ulsan, which will host the 103rd National Sports Festival next year, has made the ambitious move of inviting North Korean athletes to participate in the South Korean sporting event. But its action is drawing criticism as inter-Korean relations remain deadlocked.

Ulsan Mayor Song Cheol-ho recently announced the city would invite the North Korean athletes to South Korea’s largest annual multi-sports competition as a way to promote peace on the Korean Peninsula.

“It is not an easy task, but if the current administration’s efforts to formally end the Korean War succeed, North Korean athletes might attend the National Sports Festival as well,” Song said in a press briefing, Dec. 9.

The organizing committee contacted the Ministry of Unification, Ministry of Culture, Sports, Tourism and the Korean Sport & Olympic Committee as well as the South and North Korea Sports Exchange Association, a private organization, to reach out to the North.

Song also met Unification Minister Lee In-young, Wednesday, asking him to support the city’s bid to bring the North Koreans to the sports festival, slated for October 2022.

However, some questioned why North Korean athletes should be invited to South Korea’s national sporting event. Since the National Sports Festival is a domestic event, it might be more complicated to invite North Koreans who represent their country at the national level as athletes.

“The invitation seems unrealistic. It rather seems like a political scheme to bring up North Korean issues to win votes in next year’s local elections,” a conservative politician who requested anonymity told Yonhap News.

Some worried about safety as the COVID-19 pandemic is surging here and the virus situation in North Korea is unknown.

Others see it as a fresh idea to invigorate the nationwide sports event as it could receive international attention if North Koreans actually took part.

Previously, there were several attempts to invite North Korean athletes or co-host the annual multi-sports competition with North Korea, but all fell through.

In 2013, Incheon tried to invite a North Korean squad to the 94th National Sports Festival ahead of the 2014 Incheon Asian Games, but this failed to pan out.

The last time North Korean athletes participated in a sports events in South Korea was the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Games.

In 2019, Seoul Metropolitan Government made an attempt to co-host the 100th National Sports Festival with Pyongyang, and Gwangju requested a North Korean swimming team to take part in the World Aquatics Championships, but Pyongyang declined.

Though no North Korean team has ever taken part in the South’s national sports event, Ulsan lit the torch for the 2005 National Sports Festival at Mount Geumgang, North Korea.

Ulsan’s bid to invite North Korean athletes to national sports festival next year raises debate
Source: Buhay Kapa PH