First batch of N. Korean athletes land in Incheon

A member of the North Korean contingent gives a thumbs-up (C) from inside a bus as they leave for their hotel upon arrival in Incheon yesterday.

AFP/Reuters/Seoul

A first batch of North Korean athletes arrived in South Korea yesterday for this month’s Asian Games after taking a rare flight across the sensitive maritime border.

Security was tight as an Air Koryo plane carrying 94 athletes and officials from Pyongyang landed in the South’s main international airport in the western port city of Incheon, close to Seoul.

Some 20 South Koreans with a placard reading “Welcome North Korean athletes!” waved “one Korea” flags showing the unified Korean peninsula in the waiting hall of the airport.

They chanted “We are from one nation!” as the North Koreans, wearing white jackets and badges bearing the image of late leaders Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il, walked into buses outside the airport.

The North Koreans, escorted by South Korean police, left for the Asiad athletes’ village, without commenting.

Some 150 North Korean athletes and almost an equal number of coaches and officials will attend the Asiad, arriving on six special flights across the Yellow Sea maritime border, a flashpoint area and scene of bloody clashes in the past.

The delegation will be headed by Sports Minister Kim Yong-Hun, who will be the highest-ranking North Korean official to step on South Korean soil for five years.

The North’s participation in the Asiad was only confirmed after months of heated negotiations that coincided with a spike in cross-border military tensions over a series of missile and rocket launches by the nuclear-armed communist country.

Arguments over the size of the North Korean flag and Seoul’s refusal to foot the entire bill for the North’s delegation saw Pyongyang threaten a boycott over the South’s “arrogance”.

In the end, the North agreed to send its athletes but withdrew the proposed participation of female cheerleaders, who had taken part in three previous international sporting events in the South and proved a major ticket draw each time.

Direct contact of any sort between the two Koreas has been extremely limited since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.

One of the most isolated countries in the world, North Korea is a marginal figure on the global sports scene, but current leader Kim Jong-Un seems determined to push it into the spotlight.

And the 17th Asian Games which open in Incheon on September 19 offer the chance to showcase the reclusive nation’s sporting prowess in a country with which it remains technically at war.

Some 150 North Korean athletes and almost an equal number of coaches and officials will attend the Asiad, arriving on half-a-dozen special flights across the Yellow Sea maritime border. The delegation will be headed by Sports Minister Kim Yong-Hun, who will be the highest-ranking North Korean official to step on South Korean soil for five years.

A busload of cheerleaders attending the 2003 Universiade in Daegu made headlines after “rescuing” a rain-soaked street placard with an image of the then leaders of North and South Korea, Kim Jong-Il and Kim Dae-Jung, shaking hands.

Tearfully protesting at the “disrespect” of allowing an image of Kim Jong-Il to become rain-damaged, the cheerleaders removed the placard and took it away in their bus.

Sports and politics are often inseparable on the divided peninsula.

Concerned that protesting anti-Pyongyang activists might vandalise North Korean flags flying near the Incheon Asiad venues, the organisers have removed all national flags from the streets and replaced them with those of the Olympic Council of Asia.

In 2008, the North refused to let South Korea play its national anthem and fly its flag at a 2010 football World Cup qualifier scheduled to be held Pyongyang. Eventually the venue was moved to Shanghai.

The North’s women’s football team walked off the pitch at the 2012 London Olympics, when the South Korean flag was mistakenly displayed on the giant screen as the players were being introduced.

Kim Jong-Un, who took over as leader following the death of his father Kim Jong-Il in 2011, is known as something of a sports fan and has taken steps to try to raise the country’s sporting profile.Pyongyang holds an annual international marathon, and recently former Chicago Bulls star Denis Rodman took a group of NBA stars to play an exhibition basketball match to mark Kim’s birthday.

South Korean TV sports pundit Choi Dong-Ho said he expected a reasonably strong showing by the North Koreans in Incheon.

“They did quite well at the London Olympics, winning four golds,” Choi said.

“They are very strong in weightlifting, women’s judo and women’s football. They also have world-class gymnasts and wrestlers so I expect the North to rank within the top 10 with about 15 gold medals,” he added.