“Sports have the power to change the world.” According to the quote of Nelson Mandela, he believes that the sports are being able to unite people together no matter what contradictions and discriminations have happened before among them. Back to the mid 19th century, the Korean War took place which had divided the country into two countries: North and South Korea. Also, the conflicts between these two countries never end, but today the Olympics bring their relationship closer. In 2018, the Winter Olympic Game was held in Korea, PyeongChang, from February 9 to 25. This game included 102 sports events in fifteen sports disciplines and there are 2,952 athletes from 92 National Olympic Committees will compete. However, the biggest threat of this game is the tensions between North and his neighbor South Korea which lead to many countries skip this Olympic due to worrying the security of their delegates For the 2018 winter Olympic game, the Pyeongchang 2018 organizers correct a map on its official website which had Japan missing which lead to the furious reaction of Japanese government and there are some implications probably exist behind this accident.

First, the South Korea Olympic Official states that Japan’s omission was a “simple mistake” caused by the change in the images files when organizers updated the Olympic website in February. However, this explanation did not get accepted by the Japanese people, because the two countries had past disputes over Japan’s wartime aggression and territorial issues.

Japan wants the South Korea to use the “West Sea” which is the “Japan Sea” called by the Japanese people. There are always problems between the ownership of ocean and land. Some of the cluster lands was owned by South Korea, but Japan also claimed it under different name.

As a result, on the Pyeongchang Olympic world map, there are some places that Japan owned were marked with Korean name on the website. The Japanese cabinet chief steward, Suga, called it “extremely inappropriate” and said Japan will keep protesting on that.

According to the territorial ownership problem, many of the Japanese delegates were influenced by this problem and there will be some issues between these two groups. Despite of this, the sportsmanship still be maintained among the athletes which is to communicate and build up the friendship among different countries.

South Korea and Japan’s stiff relationship cause the problem of the Olympic game and many other countries did not want to get involved into this problem, because the North Korea’s issue has not been fixed yet. Both two of these government did not want to take out their name on the maps which lead to a awkward circumstance that they both stand their opinion firmly.

The Pyeongchang Olympic game official takes out Japanese name on the “world map” cause the Japanese government’s oppose which make cause the discord on their territorial issues. The spirit of Olympic is to be participated and active on doing all these sports, so these two countries should just let down the problems and join the game peacefully to share all their sportsmanship.

<Emily Yuan Northwood HS 11th Grade>