At the opening men’s basketball game against Puerto Rico, the organizers of the Olympics in France mistakenly played the wrong national anthem for South Sudan. Instead of the South Sudanese anthem, the anthem of Sudan was played, leading to boos from the spectators at the Pierre Mauroy stadium on Sunday. After a brief pause, the correct anthem was played, eliciting applause from the crowd.
The Paris Olympic organizers issued an apology, citing “human error” as the cause of the mistake. Majok Deng, one of South Sudan’s players, expressed his disappointment to reporters, calling the error “disrespectful.” He emphasized the importance of accuracy, especially on such a significant stage. “They have to be better because this is the biggest stage, and you know that South Sudan is playing. There’s no way you can get that wrong by playing a different anthem. It’s disrespectful,” Deng stated. He added, “Obviously, nobody’s perfect. They made a mistake. They played it at the end, and we moved on.”
In their apology, the Paris 2024 Olympic Games organizers expressed their “most sincere apologies to the team from South Sudan and their supporters for the human error of playing wrong national anthem.” They acknowledged the seriousness of the mistake and assured that steps would be taken to prevent such errors in the future.
This incident marked the second such apology by the organizers. During the opening ceremony on Friday, South Korea’s athletes were incorrectly introduced as the “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea,” North Korea’s official name.
Despite the anthem mishap, the South Sudanese team triumphed over Puerto Rico with a score of 90 to 79. South Sudan, which gained independence from Sudan in 2011 following a prolonged conflict, qualified for the Olympic Games for the first time last year. Just a week prior, South Sudan narrowly lost to the United States in an exhibition game by a single point, a game decided in the final seconds.
