North Korea's Central Television airs Olympics coverage days after it ends
According to local news reports, Korean Central Television aired 70 minutes of a women's football match between the UK and Chile this week. The match was actually played weeks earlier, on 21 July. According to Yonhap, North Korea has aired the Olympic Games a few days after its opening ceremony.
According to specialist site NK News, the women's match was aired without commentary and low resolution leaving it unclear how obtained the footage was. In past years, according to US tech blog North Korea Tech, the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union has offered Pyongyang footage of the games through a partnership with South Korean broadcaster SBS.
It is not clear where they got this year's footage from. North Korea did not send a delegation to the Tokyo 2020 Games, saying it wanted to protect its athletes from Covid-19. Pyongyang says it has no cases of the virus, but experts say this is unlikely.
The decision not to participate put an end to South Korea's hopes of using the Games to engage with the North. In 2018, North and South Korea entered a joint team at the Winter Olympics leading to historic summits.
North Korea had sent 22 athletes to the Winter Olympics in South Korea - along with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's sister, Kim Yo-jong - a move that helped initiate diplomacy with South Korea and the US.
This year marks the first time North Korea had missed a Summer Olympics since 1988 when it boycotted the Seoul Games during the Cold War.
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