North and South Korean athletes have been applauded after taking a selfie at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
The 2024 Paris Games has most certainly provided us with many heartwarming moments, and one of those came on Tuesday (July 30) after the mixed doubles table tennis ceremony.
South Korea's Lim Jong-hoon and Shin Yu-bi won bronze while North Korea's Ri Jong-sik and Kim Kum-yong took silver, trailing behind China's Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha who earned gold.
The victory marks the first gold for Wang and Sun.
After receiving their medals, the North Korean and Chinese athletes posed for a selfie taken by South Korea’s Lim.
He held the camera and positioned himself in front of the other five, before adjusting to another angle to get everybody in. The three women were behind him while the two men stood in the background.
Check out the sweet moment below:After the video was shared on social media, many users took to the comment section to praise the North and South Korean athletes for their rare display of unity as their countries have been experiencing tensions for decades.
One user commended: "One of the best moment of the Olympics and it's a near perfect example of Olympic values."
"We might call this 'sport diplomacy', 'cultural relations' or any other label we care to attach to it. I call it heartwarming & encouraging," another praised while a third added: "People may be separated by political borders, but not by humanity."
Another post on X (formerly Twitter) states that North Korean athletes saluted the South Korean stars before receiving their silver medals.
"What a fantastic gesture from North Korean athletes: before receiving silver medal, they step down from the podium and go round to salute expressively the South Korea athletes who got bronze medal," journalist Tancredi Palmeri wrote on the platform.
North Korea’s strict COVID-19 border controls kept its Olympians from traveling abroad for more than three years.
The country skipped the 2021 Tokyo Summer Olympics and the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. They returned to international competition at the 19th Asian Games in China last September.
The Paris Games marks the first Olympics that North Korea has attended since the Pyeongchang Winter Games in 2018.
According to the Washington Post, South Korean star Lim was asked if North and South Korean athletes spoke after the tournament. He revealed: “When they introduced the silver medalists, we congratulated them both. Otherwise, we really didn’t speak to each other.”
Lim was also asked if the North Korean team had felt any “rivalry” toward the South Korean team, and remarked: “No, we did not."
Congratulations to all the winners!
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