Sports

Oops! Olympics Staff Blasted for Playing Wrong National Anthem

‘DISRESPECTFUL’

Despite the rocky start to the game, Team South Sudan would go on to beat Team Puerto Rico 90 to 79.

Team South Sudan after their game against Team Puerto Rico.
Christina Pahnke - sampics/Getty

Olympics officials accidentally played the wrong national anthem when introducing a team from South Sudan ahead of their first matchup against Team Puerto Rico. According to the BBC, the wrong song was played for a brief moment before the crowd booed, and the correct anthem was played. Following the mistake, Paris Olympic officials offered their “most sincere apologies to the team from South Sudan and their supporters for the human error." “They [the organizers] have to be better because this is the biggest stage, and you know that South Sudan is playing…There’s no way you can get that wrong by playing a different anthem. It’s disrespectful…,” player Majok Deng told reporters. “Obviously, nobody’s perfect. They made a mistake. They played it at the end, and we moved on,” he added. Team South Sudan would go on to defeat Puerto Rico 90 to 79. Following the win, ESPN reports that forward Nuni Omot said the anthem mixup “gave us fuel to the fire.”

Read it at BBC

Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast here.