Australia's Olympic broadcaster Channel 7 has apologized to China for unintentionally mixing the country's flag with Chile's during the medal projection segment during Saturday night's Rio Olympic coverage.

Chinese viewers were enraged after the broadcasting network wrongfully displayed Chile's flag instead of China's. The show host apparently did not pick the mistake, Daily Mail reported.

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According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the broadcaster admitted the mistake and claimed that it was "accidental." It also apologized for the blunder.

"It was a mistake - and to the people who have been offended by it, we apologize unreservedly to them," a representative of Channel 7 told the state-run Xinhua News Agency.

A Change.org petition was created just hours after the bungle. The petition that seeks for Channel 7's apology received more than 9,000 signatures.

"The Chinese Australian community calls on Channel 7 to issue an apology on your national broadcasting services to resolve this problem and please make sure in the next 16 days of the Olympics, not only to China but to all the countries that participate in the Rio Olympics, no same mistake will happen again," the petition wrote.

Chinese viewers expressed dissatisfaction after the Rio Olympics coverage was cut short for a commercial break during China's entrance in the opening ceremony. They were also disappointed as the stars in the Chinese flags raised during the swimming and shooting medal ceremonies were incorrectly positioned - instead of orienting the smaller stars at a 36-degree angle towards the larger star, all four small stars were positioned parallel to each other.

TagsRio Olympics, Rio 2016, China flag, flag, Channel 7, Olympic broadcaster, flag mixup