Counting on Jong Un’s love of sport

SEOUL: As Olympic officials try to persuade North Korea to join what they hope will be a peaceful winter Games in the South in February, leader Kim Jong Un has a weakness that may help them: He loves sport.

Jong Un has traded insults and nuclear threats with US President Donald Trump for months, raising concerns that the Games, due to be held at an alpine resort 80 km from the world’s most heavily fortified border, could be marred by political tensions, or worse.

Economic sanctions on the reclusive nation are mounting but the sporting world and South Korea are doing everything in their power to try to coax Pyongyang to accept an invitation to the Games and relieve geopolitical tensions that have hurt ticket sales.

“We are doing our utmost for the North’s participation,” said Song Ki Hun, a lawmaker with South Korean President Moon Jae In’s party.

“But Kim Jong Un is very unpredictable.” added Song.

Jong Un, a basketball fan who counts former NBA star Dennis Rodman as a friend, has boosted spending on sports as part of his ambition to turn the North into a “sports power.”

If the North joins the Games, it would mark the first time in postwar Olympic history that a country has hosted a team from a nation with which it is officially at war. The Korean War ended in 1953 with an armistice, not a peace treaty.

The last time South Korea hosted the Olympics, the 1988 summer Games in Seoul, North Korea’s founding father, Kim Il Sung, boycotted them after a plan to co-host them fell apart.

“With North Korea there, things will be smoother,” said a European official from a winter sports federation, asking not to be identified because of the political sensitivity of the subject.

North Korea missed an Oct 31 deadline to accept invitations from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and South Korea to join the Games. But Games officials have said the North could wait until shortly before the Games to say whether it will join.

Jong Un has made sport a major focus of his plan to improve living standards. Since he assumed power in 2011, spending on sport in the nation’s annual budgets has risen faster than most other areas, according to state media reports.

At the 2014 Asian Games in South Korea, North Korea’s athletes won 11 gold medals, ranking sixth, and were welcomed with a victory parade and a banquet with Jong Un who thanked them for validating the “party’s plan for building a sports powerhouse.” Reuters