North Korea head south in search of gold

SEOUL, Sept 11 (AFP): A series of extremely rare inter-Korean flights will bring several hundred North Korean athletes and officials south for this month's Asian Games-where Pyongyang hopes to make an equally rare international sporting mark. One of the most isolated countries in the world, North Korea is a marginal figure on the global sports scene, but current leader Kim Jong-Un seems determined to push it into the spotlight.

And the 17th Asian Games which open in Incheon on September 19 offer the chance to showcase the reclusive nation's sporting prowess in a country with which it remains technically at war.

Some 150 North Korean athletes and almost an equal number of coaches and officials will attend the Asiad, arriving on half-a-dozen special flights across the Yellow Sea maritime border.

The delegation will be headed by Sports Minister Kim Yong-Hun, who will be the highest-ranking North Korean official to step on South Korean soil for five years.

Direct contact of any sort between the two Koreas has been extremely limited since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War.

The North's participation in the Incheon Asiad was only confirmed after months of tortuous, heated negotiations that coincided with a spike in military tensions on the Korean peninsula.

Arguments over the size of the North Korean flag and Seoul's refusal to foot the entire North delegation's bill saw Pyongyang threaten a boycott over the South's "arrogance".

In the end, the North agreed to send its athletes but-in a blow to the Games organisers-withdrew the proposed participation of a large group of female cheerleaders.

The cheerleaders, known as the "army of beauties," had taken part in three previous international sporting events in the South-including the 2002 Asiad in Busan-and proved a major ticket draw each time.

A busload of cheerleaders attending the 2003 Universiade in Daegu made headlines after "rescuing" a rain-soaked street placard with an image of the then leaders of North and South Korea, Kim Jong-Il and Kim Dae-Jung, shaking hands.