HOCKEY HOO-HA
UN sanctions prevent Nort Koreans from bringing goods back from Auckland tournament
When North Korea’s ice hockey team arrived in Auckland, New Zealand for an international tournament carrying battered wooden sticks, organizers stepped in to provide high- tech carbon fiber equipment. But they had to hand them back before going home – taking them would have violated United Nations ( UN) sanctions.
Exports of luxury goods to North Korea are prohibited as part of UN sanctions over its banned nuclear and ballistic missile programs, a move intended to hit Pyongyang’s elites.
But North Korea – which last week carried out its second successful test of an intercontinental ballistic missile that analysts say could reach the US mainland – remains bullish about its sporting potential.
Sports ministry official Jong KwangRim was in Auckland for the April tournament and protested over the hockey sticks, but to no avail.
He blamed the debacle on “hostile US forces” – Pyongyang always attributes UN actions against it to Washington’s doing – and said North Korea would not be cowed.
Its weapons achievements, he said, “show how great our people is and more importantly, how we have the greatest leader.”
The decision on the hockey sticks stemmed from a UN Security Council resolution passed in March last year that expanded the definition of “banned luxury goods” to include “recreational sports equipment”.
“They were not allowed to take the sticks out of New Zealand,” the New Zealand Ice Hockey Federation General Secretary Jonathan Albright, who was also the tournament director, told AFP.
Albright said that he understood authorities also seized chocolate and apples from the North Koreans before they departed, adding teams were told not to swap badges or pennants with each other because they would be confiscated too.
“I know it’s a little thing, a little pin, but apparently the security or customs officials at the airport were quite strict and vigilant.”
But Jong remained defiant, insisting, “Even though the US sanctions tried to challenge us, we were able to develop our sports sector.’’
“Recently, the development of our nuclear power and the launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile raised us to a higher position in the world,” he added. “We will also dominate the US in the sports sector in the next few years.”
1966 and all that
For most of its existence, North Korea has had a limited presence on the global sporting stage.
Perhaps its biggest success was in 1966 when its men’s football team beat Italy’s in reaching the World Cup quarter- finals – a run featured in the documentary The Game of Their Lives.
Its women’s football team is strong; they have won the Women’s Asian Cup three times and currently rank 10th in the world.
At the Rio Olympics, North Korea took home two golds, one in weightlifting and one in gymnastics – and when two gymnasts from the North and the South posed together for a selfie, it became a viral sensation.
Pyongyang has sought to raise its sporting profile in recent years, hosting a Women’s Asian Cup qualifying group in April.
Jong was speaking at a table tennis gymnasium in the capital, where many of the country’s top players were training for this week’s Pyongyang Open.
But apart from a couple of Iranians, all the players at the Challenge- ranked International Table Tennis Federation event were from North Korea.
And the Junior World Judo Championships, due to be held in the country in October, was in April switched to Croatia over security concerns.
Tears of pride
Whether Pyongyang’s athletes will participate at next year’s Winter Olympics, to be held in South Korea’s Pyeongchang, located just across the Demilitarized Zone that divides the peninsula, remains unclear.
None of its athletes have so far reached the required standards and the North, which boycotted the 1988 Summer Olympic Games in Seoul, has not yet decided whether to do the same again.
North Korean National Olympic Committee senior member Yun Yong- Bok told AFP, “We plan to make a decision after we train more and are qualified.”
Unlike the summer Olympics,
where all International Olympic Committee members can send one athlete regardless of ability, all Winter Games participants must qualify on merit, partly due to the inherent dangers that come with snow and ice sports.
So far, no North Koreans have qualified and their last chance lies with two pairs of skaters competing at September’s Nebelhorn Trophy in Oberstdorf, Germany.
Olympic organizers and the South Korean government want to ensure Northerners are present for a “peace Olympics”, even as tensions rise over Pyongyang’s weapons ambitions, with wild cards and unified teams suggested as potential routes in. But Yun would not be drawn on either prospect.
A former captain of North Korea’s national football team, who wore the country’s signature armband for 12 of his 13 appearances in the 1970s, scored eight goals before a calf injury cut short his career.
“The first thing that I felt when I saw our national flag and heard our national anthem at an international competition was gratitude to the Party for training me and letting me take part in the competition,” he said.
“Not only me but all athletes taking part in international competitions will shed tears as they look at the national flag with the thought of our country, the great leader and the people.”