The way things are going, we will probably have to wait until the first events to talk about sport and the athletes at the PyeongChang 2018 Games. With 37 days to go before the opening, Olympic news remains dominated by politics. With a North Korean soap opera with numerous twists and turns but with an uncertain outcome.
The day after a speech by Kim Jong-un, the number one in the Pyongyang regime, in favor of participation in the Games, a date was announced by Seoul to begin discussions. According to Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon, the two neighbors could meet around a table as early as Tuesday, January 9, 2018, in the border village of Panmunjom. Cool. Historical, above all, the two Koreas having officially broken off dialogue since February 2016.
Everything is working, then? Not so fast. In Washington, the announcement of North Korea's possible participation in the PyeongChang Games, even reduced to a handful of cross-country skiers and skaters, made some people cough. At the head of the procession, Lindsey Graham (photo above), the Republican senator from South Carolina. “ Allowing Kim Jong-un's North Korea to participate in the Winter Games would amount to legitimizing the least legitimate regime on the planet, he tweeted Monday January 1, a few hours after the North Korean leader's televised wishes. I am confident in South Korea's decision to reject this absurd offer, and I firmly believe that if North Korea goes to the Games, we will not go. »
It's difficult to be more direct. Lindsey Graham without nuance raises the threat of boycott. He suggests that the PyeongChang Games could take place without the American team, assuming that discussions between the two neighbors on the Korean peninsula are successful in the coming weeks.
The American reaction is not, in itself, a big surprise. But it must be taken seriously. Lindsey Graham is not the first senator to come along. According to several American media, he could very soon appear in first position on the list of possible successors to Donald Trump in the White House in the event, still current, where the investigation into his links with Russia sends the current president go play elsewhere.
The threat is therefore real, but it isolates the United States even more. Everywhere else, Kim Jong-un's opening gesture was greeted with frank enthusiasm. The IOC welcomed this, assuring through its spokesperson, Mark Adams, that it would participate closely in discussions with the PyeongChang organizing committee, the South Korean government and the Olympic committee. of North Korea.
Same story in Beijing. The spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Geng Shuang, explained on Tuesday January 2 that the rapprochement between the two Koreas was “a good thing”. He suggested the North's participation in the 2018 Winter Games was a positive sign. Finally, he confided that the Beijing regime supported the two neighbors in their efforts to improve their relations and achieve the denuclearization of the peninsula.
In South Korea, the mayor of Gangwon province, host of the Winter Games, is not afraid to go faster than the music. Choi Moon-soon is already proposing that the two Koreas form a “mixed” figure skating couple for the Olympic event. The South Korean politician reportedly met with North Korean officials in a closed-door meeting last month in China during a youth soccer tournament.
During the discussion, Choi Moon-soon reportedly proposed to his interlocutors to send a boat to the port of Wonsan, in order to transport the athletes, coaches and officials of the North Korean delegation to PyeongChang. The mayor of Gangwon province now suggests marking the rapprochement between the two countries with the participation of a couple made up of skaters from the two Koreas. A great idea.
