The Tokyo Olympic Games ended on August 8
a North Korea
Her first broadcast from Tokyo Olympics
Last Tuesday (10), two days after the closing ceremony of the Olympics. The chosen dispute was a women’s soccer match between the United Kingdom and Chile, but it was interrupted: only 70 minutes of the match, with low-resolution images and no commentary, was broadcast on the country’s state television.
(See the Tokyo Olympics photo gallery below)
The said match took place weeks ago, on July 21. According to Yonhap News Agency, the Brazil-China match, with Brazil winning 5-0, was also scheduled to be broadcast on that day.
In previous editions, broadcasting of the Olympic Games in North Korea used to start a few days after the event’s opening ceremony. But this year it did not happen. The Tokyo Olympics was also the first Summer Games in 33 years without a delegation of North Korean athletes, since Seoul in 1988.
For Yonhap, the delay in broadcasting this version may be related to the country’s choice not to send its athletes to Tokyo. Justification has been a concern about the Covid-19 pandemic. At the 2016 Rio Olympics, the North Korean delegation was present and the country’s central television began covering it four days after the ceremony that kicked off the event.
And in the broadcast of the match between the UK and Chile, the quality of the images also raised doubts about how the shots were obtained, according to the BBC portal. In previous editions, the country’s Asia Pacific Broadcasting Union provided images of the games through a partnership with South Korean broadcaster SBS, according to tech blog North Korea Tech.
