UN chief Ban Ki-moon to join Olympic torch relay

Ban Ki-moon U.N. Secretary-General

By Park Jae-hyuk

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will participate in the opening ceremony for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics and bear the Olympic torch on Friday (local time), U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said Tuesday.

Ban carried the Olympic torch at the 2012 London Olympics and the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia, but he did not take part in the opening of the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing, citing scheduling conflicts.

According to Dujarric, Ban will fly to Rio Wednesday night and visit the athletes’ village to meet and encourage the participants, including the first-ever team of Refugee Olympic Athletes, consisting of two refugees from Syria, five from South Sudan, two from the Congo and one from Ethiopia.

The Secretary-General had pledged to cheer for the team when the Olympic flame stopped by U.N. headquarters in Geneva on April 29. Previously he had remained fully neutral at earlier Olympic events. “I welcome the refugee team and I will be cheering for them with all my might,” Ban said.

On July 25, Ban also suggested all nations should observe the tradition of the Olympic Truce, throughout the period from the seventh day before the start of the games until the seventh day following the end of the Paralympics. “I call for a push to match efforts to win medals on the playing fields with work to silence the guns on the battlefields,” he said.

Ban will also attend a meeting Friday night for heads of state hosted by Brazil’s acting President Michel Temer, the spokesperson added. However, the heads of most South American nations and the former presidents of Brazil will not attend the opening for political reasons related to the impeachment of former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff.