Hi — no “From the Archives” story again today as I try to recover my website — I’ll have more details on Friday about what happened, but suffice it to say that it’s been a headache of a week, and it’s only Tuesday! But there’s a chance that this (and anything else this week) will be a re-write of a previous story because I don’t yet have a reliable way o checking to see if I wrote about a story previously… oy. — Dan

For an athlete, there's nothing quite like the medal ceremony. The competition is over, the hard part is done, and all that's left is to step onto the top of the podium, watch your country's flag rise, and listen as your national anthem fills the arena. It's the moment most athletes picture when they're training. For the organizers, the job is even simpler. Find the right song, and press play.

Usually.

In March 2012, Kazakh sharpshooter Maria Dmitrienko traveled to Kuwait for an international shooting championship and took gold in the women's trap event. She stepped onto the top of the podium, the speakers crackled to life, and out came "O Kazakhstan" — the parody anthem from Sacha Baron Cohen's 2006 comedy Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. It is not a flattering song. It brags about the country's potassium exports, takes shots at its neighbors, and declares every other nation inferior in ways that don't bear repeating here. Dmitrienko, just 23 at the time, stood through the whole thing. As Yahoo Sports described it, she "never lets on that there's a problem and graciously poses for photos with the other medalists following the ceremony."

It's hard to imagine a worse song to mix up. Borat follows a fictional Kazakh journalist on a road trip across America, and the Kazakhstan it depicts is a backward, bigoted caricature with almost nothing in common with the real country. Kazakhstan's government was not amused. Officials tried to ban the film and blocked access to Cohen's website, per Foreign Policy. Kuwait banned the movie too — it was barred across most of the Arab world, as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty noted. That may go a long way toward explaining how nobody in charge recognized the song.

So where did it come from? The internet. Kazakh coach Anvar Yunusmetov told reporters that the tournament organizers had "downloaded various countries' national anthems from the Internet," and someone had grabbed the wrong Kazakhstan-related song. Dmitrienko's teammates were "reportedly incensed," per Yahoo, and they demanded an apology and a do-over. They got both. Sheikh Salman al-Sabah, president of the Asian Shooting Federation, apologized personally, calling the use of "the music from the scandalous film in place of the anthem of Kazakhstan" "completely a mistake of the organizers." Then, as Australia's ABC News reported, "red-faced organizers" restaged the whole ceremony — this time with the right anthem.

That still wasn't enough for Kazakhstan. A few days later, the country's national sports agency filed an official complaint with Asia's Olympic governing body, according to RFE/RL. And Kuwait wasn't the only one facing consequences. The same report noted that "some Kazakh sports officials will be penalized" as well, over a song they didn't choose and couldn't stop.

And then, about a month later, Kazakhstan changed its tune.

In April 2012, Foreign Minister Yerzhan Kazykhanov went before parliament with a surprising admission. "With the release of this film, the number of visas issued by Kazakhstan grew tenfold," he said, as Foreign Policy reported. "I am grateful to 'Borat' for helping attract tourists to Kazakhstan." The warming continued. In 2020, after the Borat sequel came out, the country's tourism board adopted Borat's catchphrase as its official slogan, per Al Jazeera: "Very nice!" The anthem, for the record, is still not on any official national playlist, though.

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Today’s Bonus fact: Kazakhstan isn't the only country to get the wrong tune at its big moment. In January 1967, Pedro Rodríguez won the South African Grand Prix at Kyalami — the first Formula One win ever by a Mexican driver. But when he climbed to the top step of the podium, the band on hand realized it didn't know the Mexican national anthem, per the NASCAR Wire Service. So they improvised with the Jarabe Tapatío — better known in English as the Mexican Hat Dance. Rodríguez learned his lesson: according to Wikipedia, he traveled with a Mexican flag and a recording of the anthem from then on, just in case.

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And thanks! — Dan