sports

Player aspiring after top weightlifter

Kim Il Gyong is a woman weightlifter of the April 25 Combat Sports Team who was selected as one of the top ten best players of the DPRK in 2024 after 2022 and 2023.

Since she started her career as a weightlifter, she has immersed herself in training by displaying her natural aptitude and amazing perseverance and fortitude.

She participated in the Asian Junior and Youth Weightlifting Championships to register good results. Later, she fully displayed her capability in domestic and international games.

In the women's 59kg weightlifting of the 19th Asian Games in 2023, in particular, she established a new world record in snatch and new records of the games in jerk and total, thereby winning three gold medals.

As a result, she joined the ranks of the world record holders in the domestic women's weightlifting circles. 

Her eyes were fixed on the world games beyond Asia.

Though she won four gold and two silver medals at the women's 59kg category in the 2024 Asian Weightlifting Championships and 2024 IWF World Cup last year, she could not rest on her laurels. Her aim was not the mere first place, but the record-breaking top place.

She made painstaking efforts with great ambition and finally felt the joy of success.

She snatched three gold medals and the best player award at the 2024 IWF World Championships by snatching 108kg, jerking 141kg (new world record) and lifting 249kg in total (new world record).

"Victory for medal cannot be called a victory. The genuine victory is the win achieved by setting a new record," said Kim, winner of the Kim Il Sung Children Honour Prize and Merited Athlete.

She now holds all the world records of the women's 59kg snatch, jerk and total.

Woman of ability in weightlifting circles

Known as one of the aces in the women's weightlifting circles, Ri Song Gum is the winner of the Kim Il Sung Youth Honour Prize and Merited Athlete.

She was one of the top ten players of the DPRK in succession from 2021 to 2024.

Starting to learn weightlifting at a county juvenile sports school (at that time), she laid stepping stones to success with painstaking efforts.

With her special ability in jerk, she always won victory in different domestic and international games in succession by relying on it as a weapon, recording a new record.

She snatched three gold medals at the women's 44kg category of the 2014 Asian Junior and Youth Weightlifting Championships and established a new world record in jerk.

She won the women's weightlifting event of the 19th Asian Games in 2023 and renewed her world record in the jerk and total events at the 49kg category in the 2024 Asian Weightlifting Championships and the 2024 IWF World Cup.