South Korea's Korea Heritage Service has selected the relics, held by the new National Sports Museum, as preliminary cultural heritage, a status for modern objects less than 50 years old that are judged worth registering as heritage in future. The Korea Sports Promotion Foundation, which runs the museum, announced it on Thursday.
The five items are a bat carrying a handwritten message from North Korea's Yu Sun-bok, a bat signed by the team's 17 players and officials, the women's team gold medal and two bats used by South Korea's Hong Cha-ok. Hong and Han Young-geun donated them to the museum in April. The team, entered as Korea, was the first the two countries had fielded together since the peninsula was divided, and it beat China for the title.
Yu's message, written to Hong, reads: "I am truly glad that, for the first time since the division, we became one in heart and mind and trained and lived together. I will never forget the friendship, trust and love that grew with Cha-ok."
Hong, who also won doubles gold at the 1990 Asian Games and doubles bronze at the Barcelona 1992 Olympics, gave the items as part of the museum's donation drive before it opened on 15 October. Ha Hyung-joo, the foundation's chairman, said the players' friendship had been recognised as national heritage after 35 years. It is the second year running that an item from the museum's collection has been chosen, after a hoop and costume sketches from the Seoul 1988 Olympics became the first preliminary cultural heritage last year.
