SEOUL — Chang Ung, North Korea's only member of the International Olympic Committee, died on Sunday at the age of 87. The IOC announced his death on Wednesday, stating, "It is with extreme sadness that it had learned of Chang's death on Sunday."

The Olympic flag will be flown at half-mast for three days at Olympic House in Lausanne, Switzerland. IOC President Kirsty Coventry said, "His efforts to promote cooperation on the Korean Peninsula demonstrated the power of sport to build bridges and inspire hope." The IOC said Chang's contributions helped advance sports participation, cultural exchanges and the role of sport in society.

Born in 1938, Chang was originally a basketball player who captained the North Korean national team. After retiring from basketball, he served as a vice sports minister in North Korea, as vice chairman of North Korea's national Olympic Committee and as vice president of the Olympic Council of Asia. He was elected to the IOC in 1996, becoming the country's only-ever member of the body.

Chang served on several IOC commissions including Sport for All and the International Olympic Truce Foundation. North Korea's official news agency KCNA last mentioned him in 2023, when he was awarded the Olympic Order during an IOC session in Mumbai, India. He joined the award ceremony by video as an honorary IOC member.

His tenure at the IOC spanned a period of inter-Korean sporting cooperation. Earlier talks with South Korea led to the two countries sending unified male and female teams to the 1991 world table tennis championships in Chiba, Japan. At the 2000 Sydney Olympics, athletes of North and South Korea marched together under a unification flag depicting the Korean Peninsula during the opening and closing ceremonies, the first joint parade since the peninsula's division in 1945.

Athletes of the two Koreas walked together again at the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics in South Korea, where the two countries fielded their first combined Olympic team for women's ice hockey.

Inter-Korean relations have since deteriorated. There have been no sports or other exchange programs between North Korea and South Korea for years. North Korea has shunned talks with South Korea and the United States since its leader Kim Jong Un's broader nuclear diplomacy with U.S. President Donald Trump collapsed in 2019. Kim has branded South Korea a permanent enemy and rejected the idea of future unification. North Korea's state media did not report Chang's death.