North Korea's state-controlled media has ignored an embarrassing football defeat at the hands of arch-rivals South Korea, it appears.
Pyongyang's Rodong Sinmun newspaper reported a state of national jubilation at the country's medal success in the Asian Games, but there's been no mention at all of the team's defeat to South Korea in the men's football final. In contrast, there's been an enthusiastic welcome and blanket media coverage for the women's football team, who won gold with a 3-1 victory over Japan at the regional games held in South Korea's Incheon City Seoul-based newspaper Chosun Ilbo reports.
North Korean Central Television aired extensive footage of the homecoming parade for the country's athletes, who won a total of 36 medals at the games. They were met by a phalanx of Pyongyang's political elite – but not sport-loving leader Kim Jong-un, who has been missing from the public eye since 3 September. While cameras lingered on the country's gold medal winners, the male football team appears to have been entirely ignored amid a parade that "raised stormy cheers", according to state-controlled press.
With North and South Korea still technically in a state of war, and with media under tight state control, it's thought that ordinary North Koreans were not even informed of their team's opponents in the men's final.
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