sports

DPRK Taekwon-Do players arrived at Pyongyang International Airport on August 27 after participating in the 10th Asian Taekwon-Do Championship.

The championship was held in India between August 19 and 25, divided into the categories of senior, youth and juvenile. It brought together more than 620 players and coaches from over 20 countries including Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Cambodia and Mongolia. 

All the DPRK players were awarded more than one medal in the event.

They won 15 trophies and over 100 medals, of which 76 were golds, a record in the history of the championship.

For the victory, for the country! It was the aspiration of all the players, coaches and instructors and they did all they could do and beyond the limits as well to achieve it.

The DPRK team made a clean sweep of the championship by winning gold medals in succession from the individual pattern. But at the time when the men’s team sparring event of senior category took place, they were very anxious and uneasy.

Their main worry was whether Wang Myong Guk, a veteran player who was wounded in individual sparring earlier, would play the team sparring well. 

But Wang defeated his opponent by an overwhelming margin, relieving his teammates of the anxiety and playing a decisive role in their winning first place in the team sparring event.

“Though no one had ever thought that Wang Myong Guk would win, I was confident. One day before the championship began, he hurt his knee but he never failed to fulfil his daily task,” said coach Ri Chol Rim.

Coaches and instructors, too, devoted their all energies to guiding the training of players, putting off all household affairs.

Hwang Ju Song, who won the men’s individual sparring and special technique of the youth category, and Hwang Ui Song, who was awarded four gold medals in the juvenile category, are brothers. They expressed their gratitude to the instructors and coaches who set them high goals and showed all sincerity for attaining them, ascribing their successes to their painstaking efforts. 

“We all have one goal. It is to flutter the flag of our country in the sky of the world. It was the source of the spiritual strength which enabled us to mount the winner’s podium,” said Jang Kyong Ok, Labour Hero, People’s Athlete and head of an office of the Korean Taekwon-Do Committee.