Athletes from North Korea are currently competing in the Summer Olympics for the first time in eight years. The communist state had been suspended for the 2022 Winter Olympics by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) having withdrawn unlawfully from the Tokyo Games in 2020 citing pandemic concerns.
The sanction is now over and North Korean Olympians are in Paris. But their mission in the French capital looks to be more than simply winning medals. They have set out to rebuild trust with the Olympic family, and are seeking the prestige of competing at the Games under their country’s preferred name: the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).
Due to its diplomatic isolation, the Olympic Games are one of the few remaining platforms on which North Korea continues to engage with the global community. And the IOC is one of North Korea’s most important international partners.
