Athletes from South Korea and North Korea take a selfie during the closing ceremony of the 18th Asian Games at Gelora Bung Karno Stadium in Jakarta, in this 2018 file photo. Yonhap
It may seem like an eternity ago, given the current political climate on the Korean Peninsula, but it was only in 2018 that South Korea and North Korea assembled multiple joint teams at the Asian Games in Indonesia.
The unified Korean delegation grabbed four medals, including a gold medal in the women's dragon boat. But at this year's Asian Games in Hangzhou, China, the Koreas will compete separately. And a few members of joint teams from either side of the border will be back wearing their own national flags.
Yesterday's friends will be today's enemies.
Per the latest figures Thursday on INFO, the information website open to the accredited media, North Korea has registered 185 athletes in 17 sports for the Asiad, down from 191 athletes in 18 sports from earlier this month.
At the 2018 Asiad, South Korea and North Korea marched together under one flag at the opening ceremony, and fielded joint teams in women's basketball, rowing and canoeing. They won a gold and two bronze medals in dragon boat, which is a canoeing discipline, and grabbed silver in women's basketball behind China.
Two North Koreans from the gold medal-winning team in the women's 500-meter dragon boat, Ho Su-jong and Jong Ye-song, are back in Hangzhou. Among South Korean athletes from that squad, Byun Eun-jeong and Kim Hyeon-hee will go at it once again.
As fate would have it, South Korea and North Korea ended up in the same group in women's basketball. From the 2018 team, North Koreans Ro Suk-yong and Kim Hye-yon will be back on the court after starring in Indonesia. Ro formed effective twin towers with WNBA center Park Ji-su in 2018, and the two bigs will go toe to toe this time.
North Korea alone won 12 gold, 12 silver and 13 bronze medals to finish 10th in the medal table in 2018. It had 167 athletes competing in 17 sports then.
Eight of those dozen gold medals came from weightlifting. Of those eight champions, Ri Song-gum will be back to defend her title in the women's 49 kilograms. Kim Il-gyong in the women's 59kg, Song Kuk-hyang in the women's 76kg, and Ro Kwang-ryol in the men's 96kg are also seen as medal threats.
North Korea grabbed two golds, one silver and two bronzes in wrestling in 2018. Kim Son-hyang, a bronze medalist in the women's 50kg freestyle in 2018, will compete in Hangzhou.
Shooter Pak Myong-won, who has won three golds and four silvers over the past three Asiads in the 10m running target mixed or team events, is back for another crack at a medal in Hangzhou.
Pang Chol-mi, the 2018 Asiad silver medalist in the women's flyweight boxing event, will be fighting for her first gold this time.
This Asiad is the first international multisport competition for North Korea since the 2018 Asian Games. North Korea skipped the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, citing concerns about the COVID-19 pandemic, and was subsequently banned by the International Olympic Committee from competing in the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.
The ban was lifted at the end of 2022. If the Hangzhou Asian Games had taken place as scheduled last fall, North Korea would not have been eligible. However, Hangzhou postponed the competition by one year due to the pandemic, and North Korea has decided to participate this fall. (Yonhap)
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