South Korean broadcaster MBC apologises after using Chernobyl to depict Ukraine during Tokyo 2020 Olympic opening ceremony

A South Korean broadcaster has been forced to apologise after using offensive stereotypes to depict countries during the Tokyo 2020 Olympics opening ceremony.

MBC used the offensive pictures and captions alongside the athletes as they walked out during Friday’s ceremony.

Italy was identified via pizza, while the broadcaster used the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986 for Ukraine.

Other stereotypes ranged from the silly to the offensive: El Salvador, where cryptocurrency is legal tender, had a Bitcoin symbol to depict them, while the Marshall Islands were credited with once being a United States nuclear test site.

MBC said Syria, a nation of great history and artefacts, was known for its “underground resources [and] a civil war that has been going on for 10 years”.

Haiti’s athletes at the opening ceremony were accompanied by photos of men protesting in front of an explosion while an on-screen caption read: “the political situation is fogged by the assassination of the president”.

MBC chief executive Park Sung-jae apologised on Monday, saying the broadcaster had “damaged the Olympic values of friendship, solidarity and harmony”.

“I bow my head and deeply apologise,” he said, adding that MBC would be putting “in all [their] effort to prevent another accident from happening”.

The Tokyo 2020 Olympics officially got under way at the opening ceremony on Friday but competitions began in earnest on Saturday.

Team GB won their first gold medals on Monday, when swimmer Adam Peaty and diver Tom Daley were among the winners.