TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A Taiwanese police officer prevented a delegation of firefighters from waving a Taiwan flag at the opening of the World Police and Fire Games in Canada, reports said Saturday (July 29).

The firefighters, who had taken leave and paid their own way to Winnipeg, Manitoba, for the event, wrote on Facebook that the police officer who led the Taiwanese group had blocked them, per CNA. All they had wanted to do was to raise Taiwan’s visibility at the biennial athletic event attended by officers from more than 50 countries, according to a firefighters' association.

Before the opening ceremony for the July 28-Aug. 6 games, several other delegations had posed for pictures with the group, the Taiwan Pioneers, holding the national flag, the association said. They marched through the stadium with the flag, but an official from the National Police Agency (NPA) sent someone to stop them, according to the report. The Taiwan Pioneers said they felt threatened by the attitude of the NPA official, and the two sides parted ways without agreement.

The NPA said that through a consensus with the organizers, the team would follow the Olympic model and use the name “Chinese Taipei” with a special flag and song for the games. The police officer had wanted to offer a friendly reminder of the practice, but the exchange of views had turned into a misunderstanding, the Liberty Times quoted the NPA as saying.