Ministry of Physical Culture and Sports of the DPRK

Kim Kwang Myong, who won the 61kg freestyle wrestling event of the 2026 Asian Wrestling Championships held in April, is a wrestler of the April 25 Combat Sports Team and Merited Athlete.

Having grown up seeing the wrestling matches of his maternal uncle, Kwang Myong went to the then Songchon County Juvenile Sports School to fulfil his dream of becoming a famous wrestler.

Two years after learning the rudiments of wrestling, he was chosen by the then Sobaeksu Sports Club. Later, he improved his skills under the guidance of coach Ryom Jong Min at the April 25 Combat Sports Team.

After honing his remarkable skills, he bagged five gold medals at different domestic games including the 2024 Spring National Sports Festival and won the 61kg freestyle wrestling event of the 37th CISM World Military Wrestling Championship, his international debut.

After cutting a brilliant figure at the U17, U23 Asian Wrestling Championships 2025, he defeated all his opponents in the first halves of matches before beating his Indian rival 13-10 in the final match to become an Asian champion at the 2026 Asian Wrestling Championship.

He has set a higher goal and is training assiduously in order to achieve better successes in the future matches.

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Pak Myong Jin, a weightlifter of the April 25 Combat Sports Team, is a People’s Athlete.

Born in Chongjin City of North Hamgyong Province, he began to learn weightlifting at Sunam District Extracurricular Sports School in Chongjin City when he was 11 years old.

It is said that he was a gentle boy of few words and his mother made him attend an accordion group or get lessons in the art of speaking to change his character.

Nothing, however, attracted him.

Under the guidance of Sin Kap Jun, the then instructor of the Sunam District Extracurricular Sports School who had selected Om Yun Chol, an Olympic gold medallist and five-time world champion, Myong Jin hardened his determination to do weightlifting with a dream of becoming a world champion.

As a boy of decision and action, he went to the school every day to carry out the training tasks given by the instructor without fail.

Thus, he won victories at national games before being picked out by the April 25 Combat Sports Team, where he overcame many difficulties of intensive training and thus became able to compete with world aces.

He fully demonstrated the honour of the country by winning victories in different international games, including the 2024 International Weightlifting Federation World Championships.

Merited Athlete Ro Kwang Ryol is a weightlifter of the Chongchongang Sports Club.

Kwang Ryol’s villagers often ask how a traditional family of intellectuals like his produced a weightlifter.

It is because he has been robust since childhood as compared with his parents.

When he was a second-year student of junior middle school, his parents visited the Chongchongang Sports Club with an intention to raise him as an athlete as their only son had an unusually good physique.

He thus began to learn weightlifting.

One day, when she found him feeling tired of overtraining, his mother asked him if he wanted to give up the sport and attend any other group like the one of calligraphy.

Then he said that no matter how hard it was, he would continue with weightlifting and succeed in it without fail. He was so zealous in the training.

His efforts bore fruit. He achieved successes at a domestic game only a few years after starting his playing career before proving successful in the men’s 81kg-category clean and jerk of the youth level at the 2019 Asian Youth and Junior Weightlifting Championships.

 Later he attained remarkable successes in domestic games to be chosen as one of the top 10 players of the DPRK for 2022. He remained engrossed in training with an ambition to become a world champion and Olympic gold medallist at any cost.

He set a new world record in jerk of the men’s 88kg category at the 2025 International Weightlifting Federation World Championships. This year, he set one new world record and two new Asian records in the men’s 88kg category event of the 2026 Asian Weightlifting Championships, winning two golds and a silver.

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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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