[Sydney 2000] donga.com leads full-scale cheerleading activities in Sydney

"Go, Korea."

The largest civilian cheerleading team in the history of the Olympics, known as the 2000 Sydney Olympics Korea cheerleading group, arrived in Sydney at around 11 a.m on Sept. 17 led by An Seung-Hoon and began its full-scale cheerleading activities.

Selected from a pool of applicants on donga.com (www.donga.com), Korea Telecom (www.kt.co.kr) and 8 other Internet sites, 400 cheerleaders attended the judo competition, which started at 3 p.m. at the Darling harbor Judo stadium near downtown Sydney. They frantically cheered for Chang Jae-Sim and Han Ji-Hwan, who competed for the women¡¯s 52kg and men¡¯s 66kg judo matches. They also voiced support for Kye Sun-Hui of North Korea.

The cheerleading group waved the flag representing the Korean peninsula and cheered passionately every time Kae competed, receiving a lot of attention from other cheerleading groups and getting photographed by foreign reporters.

The cheerleading team sang a North Korean song titled ¡°Welcome¡± when the North Korean judo athlete Kye Sun Hui appeared at the arena for a match. And they sang ¡°Our Wish is Unification¡± when she left the arena. Kye responded with a smile and waved at the group.

The cheerleading group wore uniforms emblazoned with the flag of the Korean peninsula to uphold the spirit behind the joint entrance of the South and North Korean athletes. They deliberately chose judo to cheer for the North Korean competitor.

The group will remain in Sydney until September 21 to watch and cheer on Korean athletes in women¡¯s basketball (Korea-New Zealand), men¡¯s volleyball (Korea-Argentina), women¡¯s hockey (Korea-Great Britain) and baseball (Korea-USA).

Shin Chi-Young higgledy@donga.com