In an editorial, the North Korea-based National Democratic Front of South Korea (NDFSK) slammed the arrogant attitude of the U.S. in “stealing” South Korean gymnast Yang Tae-young’s gold medal. It said, “The United States, which unjustly snatched away the gold medal, is devoting itself to shameless acts and words insulting our athletes and people.” The editorial pointed to U.S. gymnast Paul Hamm’s comments in the U.S. press that if the judges had done their jobs properly, Yang wouldn’t have gotten even the bronze medal, and said “arrogant” U.S. actions amounted to “barefaced robbery that trampled on the Olympic ideal and spirit of gymnastics and an unpardonable mockery and insult against the Korean people.” NDFSK also pointed out that the Korean people remember well how short-track skater Kim Dong-seong was “robbed” of his gold medal by a U.S. athlete in the 2002 Winter Olympics and — this is my favorite part — the theft of Yang’s gold medal by the U.S. was “the natural product of [South Korea's] colonial reality in which the country is controled and subordinated by the United States.”
The problem, though, is that since the Koguryo issue popped up, Pyongyang’s nationalist credentials aren’t quite what they used to be.
