North Korea’s secret sporting weapon

GEORGE ORWELL—who is too good a source of aphorisms to worry about their truth—once opined that sport was “war minus the shooting”. This provides a lens through which to view the footballing rivalry between North and South Korea. In men’s football, as in conventional weaponry, the South has the more impressive force. Its team have won seven of their 17 encounters and lost only one. But in women’s football, as in weapons of mass destruction, it is the North who dominate. Of the 20 matches they have played against the South, North Korea’s women have won 16, occasionally dishing out 7-0 drubbings. South Korea boast a lone victory.

When the two teams meet in an Olympic qualifier on October 29th, North Korea’s women will have yet another chance to live up to their nickname, “Cheollima”, a mythical horse that can bound 1,000 ri (400km) in a single day. (It is also a favourite trope of North Korean propaganda, used to exhort citizens to Stakhanovite feats of self-sacrifice.) They will be full of confidence. Not only did they blow away South Korea 4-1 four weeks ago in the quarter-finals of the Asian Games. They have also won gold medals at three previous editions of that tournament and silver medals at three others.