Ministry of Physical Culture and Sports of the DPRK

My home is on Ryomyong Street.

It still seems like a dream to me. I had never imagined that I, an ordinary football player of the Amnokgang Sports Club, and my family, who have not done anything special for the country, could live on Ryomyong Street where scientists and researchers, including lecturers of Kim Il Sung University, live.

I vividly remember the delighted looks of neighbours saying the families of 17-year-old footballers who exalted the honour of the country moved into their apartment house and the cute look of my younger brother who looked round the new flat and asked mum if it was really our home on the day when we moved into our new flat with five rooms.

That day, my father fell in deep thought and told me that I must return the favours of the Workers’ Party of Korea by flying the national flag at international games and he and mother by working harder for the country.

That night, I looked up to the photograph I posed for with the respected fatherly Marshal Kim Jong Un again and again.

On January 2 last year, when the respected fatherly Marshal called us, the players who won the first place at the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup in 2024, to the office building of the Party Central Committee along with labour innovators and meritorious persons, highly praised us and held my hands as I won the MVP award, I couldn’t say anything as tears welled up in my eyes.

How could I have such a great honour and happiness if it were not for the socialist motherland which let the little girl, who was especially fond of football, improve her talent at an extracurricular sports school and raised her as a football player of the Amnokgang Sports Club and a member of the U-17 national women’s football team?

My home is on the ideal street of people, a wonderful and beautiful street built under the care of the respected fatherly Marshal.

Here, my family live with one mind to give greater pleasure to him and with nothing to envy in the world.

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Han Chong Song, a wrestler of the April 25 Combat Sports Team, learned basic skills of wrestling at Waudo District extracurricular sports school.

A boy with an unyielding spirit, he trained so hard that he won first place in the boys’ 32kg category of the freestyle wrestling event at the national sports school contest held in 2015.

Later he was picked out as a wrestler of the April 25 Combat Sports Team. Then he made up his mind to grow into an Asian and world champion and thus become an excellent sportsman who brings honour to the country.

Sometimes he was so tired after repeated hard training that he fell and wanted to give up, but his ambition to become a future world champion encouraged him to get up and redouble his efforts in training.

Such a habit of assiduous training helped him cut a fine figure on the domestic front and distinguish himself at international events.

He made his international debut in the 19^th Asian Games to finish runner-up in the 57kg category of the freestyle wrestling event. Under the instruction of coach Yang Chun Song, he won the 57kg category of the freestyle wrestling event in the 37^th CISM World Military Wrestling Championship held in 2024 and beat his Iranian rival, who was an odds-on favourite, to win at the 2025 Asian Wrestling Championship, thus becoming an Asian champion.

Without resting on his laurels, he trained harder to attain the goal of becoming a world champion. As a result, he defeated all the world stars at the freestyle wrestling 57kg category of the 2025 World Wrestling Championship to become a world champion and sent a report on his victory to the country.

After all, Han was crowned both the Asian champion and the world champion in one year.

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People’s Athlete Pak Chol Jun, boxing coach of the Kumgangsan Sports Team who trained Pang Chol Mi to become a two-time world champion, is known as a competent coach in the DPRK boxing circles.

His professional competence can be claimed to have been promoted through deep thinking.

At the time when he took charge of Pang first, her physical ability was not so high.

He applied new means and methods of physical training to enhance her physical ability and made increasing demands on her on the basis of a precise calculation of the amount and intensity of training.

In addition, he spared no wisdom and passion to give training for improving her hitting power by using different kinds of striking equipment, the abilities to give a sudden punch and successive punches again with quick moves and the defence and counterattack capabilities in a methodological way.

Thanks to his meditative and scientific guidance, Pang came to distinguish herself in national tournaments and won the title in the 51kg category at the IBA Women’s World Boxing Championships in 2018.

On the basis of her success, he concentrated his efforts on polishing her performance physically, technically and tactically to make remarkable achievements in several international events and coached her to win the 52kg category of the IBA Women’s World Boxing Championships in 2025 and clinch another world title.

Pak Chol Jun was selected as one of the top ten coaches of the DPRK for 2025. It was the sixth time that he was awarded the honour.

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People’s Athlete Kye Song Il is a weightlifting coach of the April 25 Combat Sports Team.

He was born into an ordinary farmer’s family. After graduating from Korea University of Physical Education, he started his career as a women’s weightlifting coach of the then Korean People’s Army Sports School in 2009.

With an ambition to produce Asian and world champions, he made strenuous efforts and thereby began to reap fruits.

His trainee Ri Su Yon took first place at the 2012 Asian Youth and Junior Weightlifting Championships and won three gold medals at the 2013 World Juvenile Weightlifting Championships.

Full of confidence, he put spurs to the training of and guidance for his trainees.

Kye also coached Ri Song Gum to success.

Originally, when he took charge of her, his colleagues were concerned about him for her poor performance.

However, whenever Ri got dispirited and succumbed to difficulties, Kye gave her strength and courage, saying she could become a world champion, if she determined and strived to be that.

A few years later, she surprised people by lifting with composure the barbells two and three times heavier than her body weight at an international contest.

She applied for a heavier weight that other players could not lift at each contest and succeeded in setting new records.

In particular, Ri achieved a stunning success in the women’s 49kg category of the weightlifting competition of the 19^th Asian Games.

Kye coached her to go on a winning streak with shocking records in the international contests held in 2024 and 2025 and retain the world championship.

He was awarded the title of Merited Athlete in 2013 and People’s Athlete in 2025.

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People’s Athlete Yang Chun Song is a wrestling coach of the April 25 Combat Sports Team.

As he started his career as coach, he was determined to fulfil his frustrated desire by training his trainees into world wrestling aces.

At the time of selecting Han Chong Song with a suitable physical constitution in 2015, his physical preparedness was not as good as Yang had thought.

However, the coach organized training rationally to suit Han’s physical form and constitution and constantly improved the training method.

Thanks to his scrupulous and scientific guidance, Han could finally cut a conspicuous figure in the domestic free-style wrestling circle and achieve remarkable successes at international games.

Han snatched a silver medal in the 57kg category of the free-style wrestling contest of the 19^th Asian Games, his international debut.

Thanks to Yang’s intensified guidance, Han won the Asian and world titles at the 2025 Asian Wrestling Championships and the 2025 World Wrestling Championships.

The coach continues to devote his wisdom and passion to the training of players with the resolve to repay the love and trust of the Workers’ Party of Korea, which gave him prominence as People’s Athlete, by training more world wrestling aces.

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So Un Hak, a People’s Athlete, is a weightlifting coach of the April 25 Combat Sports Team.

After graduating from Korea University of Physical Education, he started his coaching career in 2003 and, after only five years, he was awarded the title of Merited Athlete. He was selected as one of the top ten coaches of the DPRK in 2024 and 2025.

Over the past 20 years, he has trained his players well to exalt the dignity and honour of the country with successes at international games.

Under his guidance, O Jong Ae won a silver medal in the women’s weightlifting 58kg event of the 29th Olympic Games and Jong Chun Hui, Ri Hyon Hwa and other players achieved successful results at international sporting events.

In those days he took part in the Seventh National Conference of Sportspeople and had a significant photo taken with the respected Comrade Kim Jong Un.

With a resolve to repay the love and trust with great achievements in work, he devoted his all to attaining a higher goal.

He took charge of Kim Il Gyong and improved her physical and technical abilities in a short span of time, thus helping her achieve good results in the women’s 53kg category of the 2017 World Junior Weightlifting Championships after just four years as a professional player. He proved himself to be a competent coach by making Kim win golds in all of jerk, snatch and total at the Asian Juvenile and Junior Weightlifting Championships in 2018 and 2019.

He gave spurs to training with an eye on the world championship, with the result that Kim became a world champion at the IWF World Championships in 2024 and 2025.

Having won the title of People’s Athlete last year, So is now devoting his all to the development of weightlifting techniques to add glory to this significant year with a greater victory.

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Ri Suk, a People’s Athlete and two-time world champion, is a student at the weightlifting department of the combat sports faculty of Central Sports School.

Born into an ordinary doctor’s family in Waudo District, Nampho, she was already good at sports in her childhood and drew attention of instructors of various sports for her physical constitution suitable for sports.

She started weightlifting in her teens and learned the basic techniques at Central Sports School.

After acquiring high technical skills under the guidance of Jon Song Hui, Ri made her international debut at the 2018 Asian Juvenile and Junior Weightlifting Championships, where she surprisingly won six gold medals in the snatch, jerk and total.

Later, she won three gold medals at the 2019 Asian Juvenile and Junior Weightlifting Championships and renewed a world record in jerk and bagged three golds in the 2023 IWF Grand Prix. She overcame the ever-intensifying training course with a persevering will and won three golds at the 2024 Asian Weightlifting Championships. She renewed world records in jerk and total at the 2024 IWF World Championships and became a world champion.

Bearing in mind the great love and trust of the Workers’ Party which put her forward as a People’s Athlete, she set new world records with 111kg in snatch, 142kg in jerk and 253kg in total and won three gold medals at the 2025 IWF World Championships, thus fully demonstrating her competence as a weightlifting ace.

Kim Il Gyong, a weightlifter of the April 25 Combat Sports Team, won a gold medal in the 2017 World Junior Weightlifting Championships in her teens.

She was born and grew up in Pyongyang and began to learn the basic techniques of weightlifting from her childhood.

She is an introverted girl in daily life, but once she enters the training ground, she turns into a fiery enthusiast struggling hard to attain the training goal with a persevering and diligent spirit.

She was honoured to take part in the Eighth Congress of the Korean Children’s Union (KCU) and make a speech there. She also achieved successes in the 2018 Asian Juvenile and Junior Weightlifting Championships and the 2019 Asian Juvenile and Junior Weightlifting Championships.

She surprised experts and fans again by participating in the women’s weightlifting 59kg event of the 19th Asian Games. Later, she retained her fame as a world-class weightlifter in subsequent international games.

In particular, she set new world records in jerk and total and bagged three gold medals in the women’s 59kg category at the 2024 IWF World Championships, by giving full play to her explosive power.

In order to prove herself worthy of the trust and expectations of the Party which put her forward as a winner of the Kim Il Sung Children Honour Prize and the title of People’s Athlete, she put greater spurs to training and won three gold medals at the 2025 IWF World Championships.

Ri Suk and Kim Il Gyong are now devoting their patriotic efforts to training with the determination to glorify the honour of the country by defending their titles recognized by the world weightlifting circles and winning gold medals in international games.

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At the 14^th Asian acrobatic gymnastics championships, DPRK players set the top records in the history of the championships.

They were Ro Hye Song and Ryu Il Chon who won gold medals in three categories of mixed modelling duo and emerged as Asian champions.

They recorded the highest scores in the history of the event in the balance, speed and mixed categories of mixed modelling duo to demonstrate the developing aspects of acrobatic gymnastics of Juche Korea.

Ro Hye Song is a veteran gymnast of the Ministry of Commerce sports club, who has been successful at international and national games over the past ten-odd years.

Since she won a gold medal in the women’s modelling duo of a competition held in April 2015, she has won 20 golds in the national games. In 2019, she bagged a gold medal in the women’s modelling duo at the 11^th Asian acrobatic gymnastics championships, before winning the title of Merited Athlete.

She won two bronze medals in mixed modelling duo at the 29^th FIG world acrobatic gymnastics championships in 2024 and won three golds after recording the highest scores in the championships history at the 14^th Asian acrobatic gymnastics championships last year.

Ryu Il Chon is a player of the Ryesonggang sports club.

He began his career as an acrobatic gymnast in 2012 and cut a brilliant figure two years later.

Ryu, who is dominating the men’s modelling duo event in the national arena after taking the first place in the event in 2021, won over 50 medals including 25 golds at national games.

With a great speed power and absolute strength as well as high enthusiasm for training, he paired with Ro Hye Song last year and fully displayed his skills and potentials.

They completed difficult world-class movements in a matter of six months and exerted themselves to perfectly perform them, and thus became Asian champions in mixed modelling duo.

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