First-Ever Korean National Olympic Team with National Flag

Pyeongchang of Korea is fiercely competing with Sochi of Russia and Salzburg of Australia in a bid to host the 2014 Winter Olympic Games. Fittingly, a significant photo in Korea’s sports history has been found. The photo shows Korean athletes who participated in the 5th Winter Olympic in St. Moritz, Switzerland in 1948; the first Korean national team to bear the country’s national flag. Korea Journalists Club Vice Chairman Kim Gwang-hee disclosed five black-and-white photos of Korean athletes participating in the St. Moritz Olympics for the first time in history.

The photos show athletes in uniforms bearing “Korea” entering into the Olympic stadium holding the national flag, smiling with the Norwegian team and talking with then President Lee Seung-man before leaving for St. Moritz.

Kim said, “I received the photos in the early 1980s in Japan from Choi Yong-jin, the former national team head coach for the St. Moritz Olympics. As cameras were a rarity when the games were held, the photos are a valuable artifact of Korea’s sports history.”

beetlez@donga.com