sports

The DPRK sportspersons achieved remarkable successes in 2024.

Among them the achievements made by women weightlifters in recent years are really miraculous.

They increased the number of world record holdings from two to 14, the equivalent of 50 percent of world records, and obtained over 100 medals including 70 golds in a little over a year.

The 19th Asian Games were the starting point for demonstrating to the world the high profile of the DPRK’s weightlifting which has made rapid progress and the newly-emerged stars in the Asian and world weightlifting circles.   

In the event the DPRK women weightlifters won seven medals including five golds, with Kang Hyon Gyong, Ri Song Gum and Kim Il Gyong setting new world records in succession.  

The world records held by the DPRK women weightlifters increased to eight after the games.

Won Hyon Sim bettered the world records in snatch and total and Ri Song Gum in jerk and total in the 2024 Asian Weightlifting Championships, while Kang Hyon Gyong and Song Kuk Hyang broke the world records in snatch and jerk respectively. Particularly, Song Kuk Hyang renewed the world record held by a Chinese player in jerk.

As a result, all eleven male and female players of the DPRK participating in the 2024 Asian Weightlifting Championships won gold medals, establishing world records in a total of 12 categories.

As Won Hyon Sim renewed the previous world records in snatch, jerk and total, Kang Hyon Gyong in jerk and total and Ri Song Gum in total respectively in the 2024 International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) World Cup, which was held in Thailand, the DPRK women’s weightlifting team held 13 world records.

Ri Suk and Kim Il Gyong set new world records in jerk and total of the women’s 64kg and 59kg categories respectively in the 2024 IWF World Championships. In particular, Ri Suk renewed two world records in jerk and total respectively.

Eventually, the world championships ended with the proud victory of DPRK players, who beat six world records to hold 14 world records by adding one more to the previous ones.

Team cup was awarded to DPRK players who collected a total of 29 medals including 14 gold, nine silver and six bronze medals and Kim Il Gyong won the most valuable player award. 

They never broke the world records with only physical strength.

In a word, a true sense of patriotism is the secret of success of the DPRK women weightlifters, who created such an amazing sports legend shaking the world weightlifting circles.

Their deep love for the country and strong will to bring honour to it enabled them to overcome intensive training and their indomitable spiritual strength of overcoming themselves inspired tireless efforts and boundless enthusiasm of them to set higher goals and train harder, producing such a marvellous legend as of today.