North Yemen competed as the Yemen Arab Republic at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea. After unification with South Yemen, the nation would return as Yemen at the 1992 Summer Olympics. Abullah Alizani from the Yemen Arab Republic lost to Israeli Dov Groverman in the first round. Alizani was slated to wrestle the Israeli, but failed to show up for his match even after he was paged three times, in what an Israeli official called a political snub, and Alizani was declared the loser of the Men's Light-Flyweight (48 kg), Greco-Roman match by the referee.