Wildcards for his athletes are supposed to warm up North Korea for the Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, and to keep North Korea from possibly planned attacks on the Games. In an interview with the AFP, Pyeongchangs chief organizer Lee Hee-beom confirmed a corresponding strategy of the IOC.
“The IOC will discuss with the international professional associations to enable more athletes from North Korea to participate,”said Lee shortly before the start of the 100-day countdown to the opening ceremony on 9 September. February.
Because of the political tensions between North Korea’s dictator Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump, North Korean athletes at the Olympics would, in Lee’s view,”contribute to the safety of the Games”. Although the competitions are held only 80 km from the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between the two countries, South Korea’s Olympic leader called the fear of a military strike by North Korea’s nuclear power against Olympia “an exaggeration”.
Pyongyang has so far been covered up in terms of participation in the Olympic competitions in the southern brother state. From the Stalinist north, only one pair of figure skating skaters has so far been qualified for sport. In North Korea, only a few cross-country skiers and short-trackers have a chance of participating in the Olympics.
Lee is expecting a decision by Kim on the Olympic kick-offs of his country’s activists to be made practically at the last minute. By contrast, according to South Korea’s Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha, North Korea has already signalled interest in participating in the post-Olympic Paralympics in Pyeongchang in the first half of October.
Considerations in countries such as Germany, France and Austria to abandon participation in the Olympic Games at worst were opposed by Lee’s experiences from the past:”Korea has not only been divided since yesterday, but since 1945,”said Lee, referring to major sports events in the southern part of the country, such as the 1988 Olympic Summer Games in Seoul and the 2002 World Cup.
Lee also sees no major problem in the slow advance booking of tickets for the Olympic competitions. If ticket sales continue to be unsatisfactory, Lees said that the Ministry of Education, regional authorities and numerous banking institutions would purchase hundreds of thousands of tickets and send their employees to the Olympic arenas “I am confident that we will have full stadiums,”said Lee.