Getty Image
You probably won’t be shocked to learn the athletes who represented North Korea at the 2024 Olympics were expected to abide by a strict set of rules, and two silver medalists may be facing discipline after smiling with some of their competitors on the podium in Paris.
North Korea declined to send a delegation to the Summer Olympics in Tokyo when the event was belatedly held in 2021, but the country was represented in Paris courtesy of the 16 athletes who qualified to compete in seven different sports.
When everything was said and done, six of those participants were able to secure a medal. Four of those were bronze spread across boxing, diving, and wrestling, and two duos were able to win silver in the women’s synchronized diving and mixed table tennis doubles events.
Asia has historically produced the teams to beat when it comes to table tennis at the Olympics, and Paris was certainly no exception.
North Korea’s Ri Jong Sik and Kim Kum Yong won silver after falling to Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha of China in the mixed doubles gold medal match, and those two teams were joined by South Korea’s Lim Jong-hoon and Shin Yu-bin on the podium when the awards were handed out.
All six of those athletes were sporting a smile while posing for the selfie Lim snapped after the medals were presented, but that picture could come back to haunt Ri and Kim.
According to The Daily NK, officials in the country ruled by the infamously autocratic Kim Jong Un informed its athletes they were forbidden from interacting with competitors from other countries at the Olympics, and the outlet says it spoke with an anonymous source who informed it Ri and Kim were under scrutiny for the picture in question as they undergo the mandatory three-stage “ideological review” its representatives were subjected to after returning from Paris.
While North Korea and South Korea marched together in the Opening Ceremony in a show of unity at the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, there is obviously still plenty of bad blood between the two countries, and officials in the former are seemingly very displeased with the optics of the selfie.
It’s unclear what kind of punishment Ri and Kim could face (North Korea has historically used hard labor to discipline Olympians who fail to meet expectations or break the rules), although the outlet notes they could potentially appeal for leniency by admitting to their “mistake” in the section of the ideological assessment where they have an opportunity to admit to any shortcomings.