Wrong national anthem played for South Sudan at Olympics

• Posted on July 29, 2024July 29, 2024
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

The Olympic organisers in France played the wrong national anthem for South Sudan ahead of the country’s opening men’s basketball game against Puerto Rico.

Spectators in the Pierre Mauroy stadium on Sunday booed as the Sudanese anthem was played instead of that of South Sudan.

The audio was corrected after a short pause, followed by an ovation from the crowd.

The organisers of the Olympic Games in Paris released a statement apologising for the “human error”. One of South Sudan’s players later told reporters the gaffe was “disrespectful”.

“They [the organisers] have to be better because this is the biggest stage, and you know that South Sudan is playing,” said Majok Deng.

“There’s no way you can get that wrong by playing a different anthem. It’s disrespectful,” he continued.

“Obviously, nobody’s perfect. They made a mistake. They played it at the end, and we moved on.”

The organisers of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games gave their “most sincere apologies to the team from South Sudan and their supporters for the human error.”

“We fully understand the gravity of the mistake,” the statement read.

It is the second time organisers have had to apologise for such a gaffe – during the opening ceremony on Friday, South Korea’s athletes were mistakenly introduced as the “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea” – the official name of North Korea.

The South Sudanese team went on to beat Puerto Rico by 90 points to 79.

South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011 after a protracted conflict, and qualified for the Olympic Games for the first time last year.

Last week, South Sudan lost to the United States by just one point in an exhibition game that was won in the last seconds.