Korean Olympic Theme Songs

The 2020 Tokyo Olympics are in full force and so many top athletes from across the globe have been eliminated already.

Today we're giving you the rundown on the songs created to show support for the Korean athletes over the years.

From PSY to traditional folk music, let's get started.

Korea's Olympic Songs

Tokyo 2020 - Arirang (아리랑)

This year, for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, we throw it way back to the beloved traditional Korean folk song "Arirang".

In order to participate in the spread of copyright donation culture, the owner to the rights of this version of "Arirang" donated the proceeds and granted free use of the song to the public.

Rio 2016 - My Hero

For the 2016 Rio Olympics, "My Hero" was created to be the theme song of the competitors representing Korea.

The song was written by Cho Young-soo who has written countless K-Pop songs.

Participants in production of the song included Olympic athletes Back Hyun-man, Lee Eun-cheol, Shim Kown-ho, Yeo Hong-cheol, and Yoon Hyun-kyung, as well as Super Junior's Leeteuk, EXO's Suho, and Kassy.

London 2012 - KOREA

The year the London Olympics took place was also the year PSY took the world by storm with the iconic "Gangnam Style".

Korea put out an official song entitled "KOREA", to cheer on the athletes representing the country in the Olympics.

The video was shot at Gwanghwamun and Gyeongbokgung, interspersed with modern high-rise buildings, a crowd of sports players (including Paralympics contestants) and traditional performers led by PSY himself put on a high energy show.

The video was shot in one take, which garnered a lot of attention.

Beijing 2008 - sonata of temptation, Champion, Get Ya, Hit and Run

The support songs for the 2008 Olympics were selected by China, the host country that year.

Among them, three K-Pop songs were chosen, namely "sonata of temptation" by IVY, "Champion" by PSY, and "Get Ya" by Lee Hyori

Back then, it was a huge deal for K-Pop to get that kind of international recognition.

In addition, the baseball team had their own official song "치고달려라" which translates to "Hit and Run"

Athens 2004 - 오! 필승코리아 (Oh! Korea Must Win)

For the Athens Olympics, there were not songs produced specifically for the games, but rather they picked songs that represented Korea and served to boost morale.

According to surveys at the time, "Oh! Korea Must Win" received more than half of the approval rate, and the second place title went to"대한건아 만세" (Long Live The Korean Athlete).

The song originally came from the 2002 World Cup album to cheer on the players representing Korea.

Sydney 2000 - 날 위한 날개 (Wings For You)

In the year 2000, North and South Korea met for the first inter-Korea summit since the country was divided.

So for the 2000 Olympic games, it was reported that South Korean singer Cho Yong-pil and North Korean singer Jeon Hye-young would sing a duet, but it never came to fruition.

The most widely used song was "날 위한 날개" (which translates to Wings For You) sung by Kim Hyun-jung, Im Chang-jeong, Lee Seung-hwan, Ahn Jae-wook, and Baby V.O.X.

Seoul 1988- Hand In Hand

The very first Olympic theme song, "Hand In Hand", came out in 1988 for the Seoul Olympics.

At the time, there was a lot of controversy over why the song had been composed by foreigners and not Koreans, but the song came to be accepted by most.

A Korean version of the song was also created and released alongside the English version.

This was a look at the songs of the Olympic Games over the years.

Which song do you like most?

Let us know in the comments!