International Olympic Committee Bars North Korea From Competing in Beijing Olympics
North Korea has been banned from participating in the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing after choosing not to compete in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics due to Coronavirus concerns.
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IOC bans North Korea from participating in 2022 Beijing Olympics.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has banned North Korea from participating in the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.
The IOC justified its punishment based on North Korea's national Olympic body's "unilateral decision" to drop out of the Tokyo Olympics this summer.
"They were violating the Olympic Charter and did not fulfill their obligation as stated in the Olympic Charter to participate," said IOC's president, Thomas Bach, in a press conference after an executive board meeting.
North Korea's decision not to send its athletes to compete in the Olympic Games was due to concerns that they would contract Coronavirus and spread it in the country, especially that some reports believe that a near virus outbreak would weaken North Korea's healthcare system.
Bach announced that the ban on the North Korean Olympic committee is through 2022 and could extend.
It is worth mentioning that the North Korean athletes who qualify for the Beijing Winter Games might be able to compete under the Olympic flag. In fact, Russian athletes played under the Olympic flag when Russia was banned from the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
