LACKING PREPARATIONS AT FINA

[Anchor Lead]

It has been discovered that South Korean athletes competing in the FINA World Championships 2019 in Gwangju are wearing uniforms without the name of their country. One of the athletes has even been spotted wearing a swim cap with the word "Korea" written on it with a regular marker.

[Pkg]

​Athlete Baek Seung-ho competing in the open water race is wearing an orange swim cap. A closer look at the cap reveals "KOR" handwritten on the cap. Swim caps that were originally provided by the swimming federation featured the Korean national flag on them. However, shortly before the competition they were hurriedly replaced with other caps because the original ones were said to be in violation of the regulations. The new caps had the word "Korea" hand-written on them with markers. To make things worse, the new caps did not fit the athletes properly and kept slipping off throughout the competition. It has been also found that the uniforms of Korean national athletes were not marked with the name of the country up until the competition began. The uniforms of athletes Cho Eun-bi and Moon Na-yoon, who competed in the diving event, had silver tape attached to them, rather than the name of their country. This happened because the swimming federation failed to prepare official uniforms and provided regular sportswear to the national team. As the International Swimming Federation took issue with the uniforms, a sponsor's name written on the uniforms in question was covered with tape. This disgraceful incident was the result of a delay in finalizing contracts with sponsors due to internal conflicts in the Korea Swimming Federation.

[Soundbite] (OFFICIAL AT KOREA SWIMMING FEDERATION (VOICE MODIFIED)) : "There have been a number of issues. The contract was not signed, so we began to look for another sponsor, which caused a delay."

The name of the country on the national team's uniforms was eventually attached temporarily, but the official uniforms are still not ready. The Swimming Federation's failure to prepare uniforms for the Korean athletes has caused disruptions in the athletes' competitions and damaged the reputation of South Korea as the host country.