Cheering for Hangzhou Asian Games football qualifiers
Five years after returning to international play
North Korea’s participation in the Hangzhou 2022 Asian Games brought the North Korean Women’s Cheerleading Team into the stands.
The voices of North Korean women chanting “Win, win, win, our players win” could be heard loud and clear at the Zhejiang Sabodae East Stadium in Jinhua, Zhejiang province, China, as the North Korean men’s national soccer team took on Chinese Taipei in their first Asian Games qualifying Group F match on Sept. 19.
The North Korean supporters wore matching mauve shirts and hats and waved balloons in their hands. They cheered for their athletes with chants that we could easily understand, such as “Good job, good job, our athletes, good job,” and “Win.”
North Korea was suspended by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for unilaterally boycotting the 2021 Tokyo Olympics due to COVID-19, and the suspension was lifted on December 31 last year.
North Korea has been slowly returning to international competition this year, sending nearly 200 athletes to the Hangzhou Asian Games. According to MyInfo, the official information site of the Hangzhou Asian Games Organizing Committee, North Korea has registered a total of 191 athletes, including 112 women and 79 men, in 18 sports.
This is the first time in five years that North Korea has sent a team to a multi-sport event, including the Olympics and Asian Games, since the 2018 Jakarta-Palembang Asian Games.바카라사이트
The return of the North Korean women’s cheerleading squad is also five years in the making. The North Korean women’s cheerleading squad made a splash at the 2002 Busan Asian Games, the August 2003 Daegu Summer Universiade, the August 2014 Incheon Asian Games and the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics.
The Rio de Janeiro Olympics in 2016 and the Jakarta-Palembang Asian Games in 2018 also featured mixed-gender North Korean cheering squads.