The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has stirred controversy by inaccurately presenting sports events. Since the start of the Paris Olympics, the IOC has been using its official social media platforms to showcase each event.
Most recently, the IOC mistakenly labeled taekwondo as judo on its social media account. Professor Seo Kyung Deok from Sungshin Women’s University, a prominent figure in the global campaign against the Rising Sun Flag, revealed yesterday, “After receiving numerous reports from internet users, we confirmed that the taekwondo video was incorrectly tagged with #Judo.”
The controversy began when the announcer at the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics mistakenly referred to South Korea as the People’s Republic of Korea, the official name for North Korea. Then, on the 28th, during the report on Oh Sang Uk’s gold medal win in men’s sabre fencing, the organizing committee misspelled his name as “Oh Sang Gu.”
Moreover, French media mistakenly combined the flags of South Korea and Japan to create a composite flag for broadcast. During updates on medal standings, they also incorrectly displayed the flag of South Africa instead of South Korea’s Taegukgi, leading to significant criticism.
The Australian news outlet 9NEWS added to the controversy by mistakenly identifying the South Korean flag as the Chinese flag while reporting on the overall rankings for the Paris Olympics. Seo expressed concern, emphasizing, “Coverage of the Paris Olympics continues to perpetuate inaccurate representations of Korea worldwide.”
He stressed, “Correcting these mistakes through legitimate protests is more important than simply expressing blame and anger.”
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