IOC suspends North Korea from Beijing Olympics for Tokyo no-show

North Korea was formally suspended from the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics by the IOC on Wednesday as punishment for refusing to ship a group to the Tokyo Games citing the COVID-19 pandemic.
IOC president Thomas Bach stated the North Korean nationwide Olympic physique will even now forfeit cash it was due from earlier Olympics. The unspecified quantity — doubtlessly hundreds of thousands of {dollars} — had been withheld due to worldwide sanctions.
Individual athletes from North Korea who qualify to compete in Beijing may nonetheless be accepted by a separate determination sooner or later, Bach stated.
The suspension marks a steep drop in North Korea’s Olympic standing because the 2018 Winter Games in South Korea, the place the International Olympic Committee tried to assist a diplomatic breakthrough.
Athletes from the Korean neighbors marched collectively within the opening ceremony at Pyeongchang and joined collectively in a ladies’s ice hockey group.
North Korea withdrew its group in April from the Tokyo Olympics citing a necessity to guard athletes from the “world public health crisis caused by COVID-19.”
“They were violating the Olympic Charter and did not fulfill their obligation as stated in the Olympic Charter to participate,” Bach stated at a information convention after an IOC govt board assembly.
The North Korean Olympic committee is suspended by means of 2022 and the exclusion may very well be prolonged, he stated.
North Korea despatched 10 rivals to the 2018 Winter Games, none in 2014 at Sochi, Russia, and two to Vancouver in 2010.