The Olympic organizers mistakenly played the wrong national anthem for South Sudan before the country’s opening men’s basketball game against Puerto Rico.
Spectators at the Pierre Mauroy stadium booed as the Sudanese anthem played instead of South Sudan’s. After a brief pause, the audio was corrected, and the crowd responded with an ovation.
The Paris Olympic Games organizers issued a statement apologizing for the mistake. One of South Sudan’s players described the error as “disrespectful.”
“They have to be better because this is the biggest stage, and you know that South Sudan is playing,” said Majok Deng. “There’s no way you can get that wrong by playing a different anthem. It’s disrespectful. Obviously, nobody’s perfect. They made a mistake. They played it at the end, and we moved on.”
The organizers of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games extended their “most sincere apologies to the team from South Sudan and their supporters for the human error.” The statement added, “We fully understand the gravity of the mistake.”
Despite the mishap, the South Sudanese team went on to beat Puerto Rico 90-79. South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011 following a protracted conflict and qualified for the Olympic Games for the first time last year. South Sudan narrowly lost to the United States by just one point in an exhibition game that was decided in the final seconds.
