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North Korean athletes participated in the official welcome ceremony for the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games on Friday, vowing to deliver strong performances and achieve better results at the quadrennial continental multisport event. The ceremony, held at the Port of Nagoya Garden Pier in Nagoya, Japan, took place at 3 p.m., after a delay of over an hour.

Pak Chon-jong, North Korea's vice minister of physical culture and sports, attended as chef de mission, while Ko Chol-ho, secretary-general of the Olympic Committee of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, was also present. North Korea's chef de mission, Kim Il-guk, who arrived in Japan the previous day, will serve as head of the North Korean Olympic Committee.

Pak, a former basketball star in North Korea, did not speak to reporters before or after the ceremony. The welcome ceremony marked the eighth of the nine official athlete welcome ceremonies for the Asian Games.

Brief written by urgent.news from The Korea Times's own syndicated text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.