In a mishap during the opening men’s basketball game at the Paris Olympics, the wrong national anthem was played for South Sudan. Instead of South Sudan’s anthem, the Sudanese anthem was played at the Pierre Mauroy stadium on Sunday. The mistake prompted boos from the audience until the correct anthem was played after a brief pause, resulting in applause from the crowd.
The Paris Olympic organizers issued a statement apologizing for the “human error.” Following the incident, one of South Sudan’s players described the error as “disrespectful.”
“They [the organisers] have to be better because this is the biggest stage, and you know that South Sudan is playing,” said Majok Deng.
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“There’s no way you can get that wrong by playing a different anthem. It’s disrespectful,” he continued.
“Obviously, nobody’s perfect. They made a mistake. They played it at the end, and we moved on.”
The Paris 2024 Olympic Games organizers offered their “most sincere apologies to the South Sudan team and their supporters for the human error.”
“We fully understand the gravity of the mistake,” the statement said.
The South Sudanese team went on to secure a victory over Puerto Rico with a final score of 90-79. South Sudan, which gained independence from Sudan in 2011 following a long conflict, qualified for the Olympic Games for the first time last year. In a closely contested exhibition match last week, South Sudan narrowly lost to the United States by just one point, with the game being decided in the final seconds.
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