South Korean table tennis player Lim Jong-hoon (2nd from left) briefly shakes hands with North Korean player Ri Jong-sik during the awarding ceremony for the mixed doubles table tennis event at the Paris Olympics on Tuesday.
In the games, where a female and a male player form a team, Lim (27) and Shin Yu-bin (20) captured bronze medals, and the North Korean team, which consisted of Ri (24) and Kim Kum-yong (23), won silver medals.
There had been some concerns over the South and North Koreans interacting with each other in the awards ceremony, given the recent frosty relations between the two Koreas. The North Korean national team also showed a cold shoulder to South Korean players when shaking hands and taking photos at the Hangzhou Asian Games in 2022.
Both teams' hands barely touched each other during Tuesday's ceremony, but they said “congratulations” to each other in Korean and took a selfie together.
Lim said he did not say anything else to the second winners in an interview with local media.
All the awardees, including Chinese gold medalists, also took selfies with Lim’s smartphone, a galaxy model offered by the International Olympic Committee's official partner Samsung, after receiving medals.
Meanwhile, tensions between South and North Korea have been on the rise due to the trash balloons that North Korea continually floats to the South and South Korea’s resumption of propaganda broadcasts on its border with the North.
