Halmstad, May 3: The North and South Korean women’s table tennis teams were due to face off in the World Championship quarter-finals on Thursday but rather than battling it out they decided to join forces and create a unified team.
Images by an epa photojournalist on the ground showed the grinning athletes happily interacting and posing for the press as they stood together in a line in front of the table instead of playing each other.
Having successfully merged, the now single Korean team rose to the semi-finals, where it is to face whoever emerges from the upcoming match between Ukraine and Japan.
Following the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics, where the two countries also presented a unified team of athletes that competed under the same flag, a thawing in diplomatic relations has started between Pyongyang and Seoul. IANS