IOC chief Bach apologizes to South Korean president over ceremony gaffe

Olympics boss Thomas Bach offered a "sincere and heartfelt apology" to South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol after their delegation was introduced as North Korea at the Paris opening ceremony, Yonhap news agency said on Saturday.

When the South Korean athletes and officials were highlighted on their boat on the Seine during Friday's extravaganza, the French and English announcers called them Democratic Republic of Korea, the official name for communist North Korea.

The insert on the international broadcast feed correctly named them Republic of Korea, which is South Korea's official name.

According to South Korean news agency Yonhap quoting Yoon's office, International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Bach referred to his youth as a West German and said that as someone who had grown up in a divided country, he could empathize with South Koreans.

He said he would do everything in his power to ensure that a similar incident would not happen again in a 10-minute telephone conversation with Yoon, Yonhap added.

The two Koreas have been divided since the 1950-1953 Korean War. Both states are separated by a demilitarized zone and a joint peace treaty has never been signed.

"South Koreans were quite surprised and dismayed with this incident," the presidential office quoted Yoon as saying.

According to the Ministry of Sports in Seoul, it asked the foreign ministry to lodge a complaint with the French government as well as demanding talks with Bach which were agreed to.

The South Korean Olympic Committee also announced that it was sending a letter of protest to the IOC.

"We sincerely apologize for the mistake made in introducing the Korean athletes during the opening ceremony broadcast," the IOC said on its South Korean X account early Saturday.

IOC spokesman Mark Adams followed up later in the day by saying that the error was "clearly deeply regrettable."

"We apologize whole-heartedly. We made it very clear from the IOC that an operational mistake was made," he said.

"We can only apologize, in an evening of so many moving parts, that this mistake was made, and we apologize to the people of the Republic of Korea for that."

It was not the only gaffe at the ceremony as the Olympic Flag was raised and flown upside down.

Adams added: "It's regrettable, but in a four-hour show, occasionally things do happen. But I think we can all move on from that one."