Paris 2024 Olympics: North Korea performs diplomatic gymnastics

One of those cheering was North Korean rival An Chang-ok, who had already won her third gold medal at the 2024 Olympics, as the Paris gymnastics market roared on American Simone Biles for her second gold medal.

South Korea and the US competed against the North in Saturday’s children’s vault last.

Rare encounters between a young girl required to perform political acrobatics while being thoroughly chaperoned on her trip away from home by an age 21, grinned and waved for TV monitors and hugged at least one other winner.

The mysterious state may be partially reopening after a particularly long period of isolation, thanks to Pyongyang’s decision to send athletes to these Games, two of whom also posed for selfies with North Korean rivals.

After all, this comes after a heated period that has seen the North sending waste-filled balloons at the South.

The North’s involvement in these Games signalled a “remarkable” returning to the global fold, suggested Jean H Lee, a previous Associated Press journalist who opened the US media company’s first commission in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang.

It did not send any players to the Tokyo Olympics, held in 2021, after the region shut itself off from the universe even more severely than normal due to the Covid-19 crisis.

But in Paris, it was “making the endeavor to rejoin the international community”, Lee said, “regardless of what’s happening with their nuclear program, which is always the elephant in the room”.

The North’s radioactive interests continue to cause tensions with the South and the US. However, on Saturday, the three countries ‘ gymnastics showed no signs of hostility.

This new era of North Korean athletes won two silver medals in Paris and sometimes surpised sport analysts who were unsure of their expectations.

Winning awards was not the government’s even purpose, according to Prof Ramon Pacheco Pardo of King’s College London, who has written heavily on the two Koreas.

Prod Pacheco Pardo claimed that the country’s traditional form of” sports geopolitics” required a limited membership in a global platform to demonstrate that the nation was normal. Athletes were some of the “few actors that North Korea has who wo n’t be viewed suspiciously” by the world, he explained.

The contrasting support for An and Biles could not have been starker. In an earlier competition during the Games in Paris, Biles was memorably cheered on by a host of celebrity supporters in the stands, including Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande, Tom Cruise and Snoop Dogg. Thousands of punters yelled her name on Saturday, too.

An, however, received simply polite appreciation from the colours. Since North Koreans are prohibited from leaving their nation, she was alone in the area.

Because the Games are n’t being televised live in North Korea, according to Radio Free Asia ( RFA ), it’s unlikely anyone was watching either at home. Additionally, the tightly controlled state media have only been able to access a small number of words reports for BBC Monitoring.

However,” the chattering class of Pyongyang certainly did, from one source or another” hear the Olympic effects as they come in, said John Everard, the UK’s adviser to North Korea from 2006 to 2008.

One of the 16 North Korean athletes who visited the lavish host city Pyongyang, where they were filmed setting off next month, is an athlete from that city.

According to Everard, the top North Korean athletes were likely to have some knowledge of the outside world, but there was still a chance of” impact factor.”

A unique instance of a South Korean table-tennis person taking a picture that showed his mixed-doubles companion posing alongside the silver-winning North Korean trio was one of the popular events of the Games therefore far.

Would Pyongyang’s leaders have anticipated or relished this brief act of coherence between two technically still at war?

Agreeing to the selfie was” a message” from the North, said Prof Pachedo Pardo, who speculated that the move would have had Pyongyang’s consent. ” North Korea is indicating that it has a problem with the South Korean government, not with the people of South Korea.”

At any rate, the moment was not totally unexpected, after something similar in 2016. And two years later, North and South fielded a joint women’s ice hockey team at the Winter Games in the South.

The selfie includes a brief press conference by the two table tennis stars, one of the North’s few visible interactions with the outside world during the Games.

Unofficial footage has appeared to show An holding a number of pin-badges, which are said to be a common item traded by international gymnasts away from the stadiums.

After so much exposure to the Western world, the athletes will probably undergo a gruelling “debrief” after returning home to ensure they stay on-message, said Lee, who is also the co-host of the BBC World Service’s Lazarus Heist podcast.

Contrary to the myth, any athlete deemed to have “failed” would probably not be punished, the analysts agreed. But they could face gruelling” self-criticism” sessions.

” The big hit for not winning a medal is n’t so much the punishment, it’s that you do n’t gain all the benefits that you could have gained”, said Everard. Winners may receive prizes like a new home and a higher status in society.

It remains to be seen whether this latest sporting diplomacy will translate into meaningful new talks between the two Koreas. The relative bonhomie in Paris was briefly imperilled at the outset by a furore when organisers mixed up the two nations’ names in the opening ceremony, for which they apologised.

Outside the Bercy Arena after Saturday’s gymnastics, one fan from the Seoul side was not convinced the politics would change much.

She claimed that the sight of athletes collaborating on a stage was at least a reminder that everyone in Korea was a “human” unit.