Kim Il Gyong, Kang Hyon Gyong and Ri Song Gum put on the list of the top ten players of the DPRK for 2024 are world-class female weightlifters.

Behind their honour are proficient coaches.

Weightlifting ace, competent coach

This is the first time for Ri Song Hui, weightlifting coach at the Amnokgang Sports Club, to be selected as one of the top ten coaches of the DPRK.

She can claim to be a successful athlete both as a player and a coach.

She was once a world-renowned weightlifting ace.

During her playing career, she won three Asian championships and two world championships, renewed world record five times and achieved good results in the Olympic Games.

As a result, she was awarded the titles of Labour Hero and People’s Athlete.

She has been working as a weightlifting coach of the Amnokgang Sports Club since 2012 and led her players to success by dint of scientific organization of training, remarkable ability to control their psychology and feminine delicacy and humanity.

Under her guidance, Kang Hyon Gyong won several international games to be a weightlifting champion. In particular, she emerged victorious at three international events in succession last year to bag nine gold medals and to be chosen as one of the top ten players of the country for 2024.

Ri Song Hui qualified as an international referee was active at the 2024 Asian Weightlifting Championships and the 2024 IWF world championships.

Able weightlifting coach

So Un Hak is a weightlifting coach of the April 25 Combat Sports Team.

With his good skills for a coach, he has trained many players of the national team for more than 20 years and contributed to making them exalt the honour of the country.

The jewel in his crown is Kim Il Gyong.

Thanks to So’s efforts, Kim made an international debut just four years after she started playing and achieved good results.

She took part in the Asian Youth and Junior Weightlifting Championships in 2018 and 2019 and won gold medals in all sub-events.

Looking back upon that time, Coach So boasted that the three world junior records Kim set in 2019 have not yet been broken.

The coach made steady efforts without resting on his laurels.

Under his instruction, Kim won victories at the 19th Asian Games, 2023 IWF Grand Prix, 2024 Asian Weightlifting Championships and 2024 IWF World Cup. Especially, she established a new world record at the 2024 IWF world championships and received the best player award.

He was awarded the title of Merited Athlete just five years after he became a coach and was selected as one of the top ten coaches of the DPRK for 2009, 2011, 2022 and 2024.

A coach attaching importance to developing special skills

Kye Song Il, weightlifting coach of the April 25 Combat Sports Team, was awarded the title of Merited Athlete in 2013 and has been chosen as one of the top ten coaches of the DPRK four times in a row since 2021.

As a coach, he prioritizes the development of special skills of players while giving them training.

It is unthinkable apart from his guidance over training that Ri Song Gum has been able to consolidate her position as a world weightlifting ace in the international arena.

When she was picked as a weightlifter, Ri was naturally good in physical preparedness, but had many problems to solve in different aspects including basic techniques.

Based on a scientific training plan for the development of her special skills, Kye set a daily training task and made increasingly exact demands.

With jerk as her forte, Ri Song Gum won successively at international and national events and set new records, thus becoming a world weightlifting ace.

She collected three gold medals in the women’s 44kg category of the 2014 Asian Youth and Junior Weightlifting Championships, with a new world record in jerk.

She also renewed world records in jerk and total in the 49kg category of the women’s weightlifting event of the 19th Asian Games in 2023, the 2024 Asian Weightlifting Championships and the 2024 IWF World Cup.