South Korea's Chilly Response to a Joint Olympic Team
The hoped-for breakthrough for sports diplomacy isn’t turning out the way Seoul had planned.
1991 was a watershed year for sports diplomacy in the Korean Peninsula. That year, South Korea and North Korea fielded joint men’s and women’s teams at the World Table Tennis Championships, as well as a joint boys’ team in the World Youth Championship. Both teams—the Koreas’ first in international competitions since their division in 1945—performed well: The unified ping pong team won gold in the women’s team event, while the unified youth soccer team defeated Argentina at the group stage. The South Korean press hailed their success. An article in , a conservative daily, breathlessly the women’s ping pong team’s win “the happiest news in the 46
