Celebrating Olympic golds, N. Korea vows to be international sports power
ERIC TALMADGE
PYONGYANG, North Korea — Despite claiming only two gold medals in Rio, North Korea is as determined as ever to fulfill one of leader Kim Jong Un’s primary goals: to become an international sports superpower.
North Korea’s small Olympic team won its two golds in weightlifting, where it has a number of world-class and world-record-holding lifters, and gymnastics. Weightlifter Rim Jong Sim won the gold in the women’s 75-kilogram division, while gymnast Ri Se Gwang won the men’s vault. The North also won three silver and two bronze medals.
“When our Rim Jong Sim stood on the podium with our national anthem playing, she cried and my mother and I cried, too, as we watched on TV,” Ri Yun Gum, an 18-yearold government worker, said Monday in Pyongyang as the Rio games were coming to a close. “I think our athletes are able to win not just because they train hard, but because of their mental toughness.”
The performance was a tad shy of expectations, since North Korea had four golds in London.
But transforming North Korea, which has very limited economic resources and a population of only about 25 million, into a player to be reckoned with on the global sports stage is one of Kim’s pet projects, and he has poured funds into the development and training of promising athletes over the past several years.
It has already made a visible mark on Pyongyang.
The relatively affluent capital has seen the rise of a number of major new or renovated sports venues, and each year its usually restricted streets are opened for the Pyongyang Marathon, which has become a major tourist attraction. Though pickup volleyball games and football matches in schoolyards have long been a staple in the city, it’s now a common sight to see young people out jogging or even canoeing on the two main rivers that run through Pyongyang.
And while South Korea lets its top athletes get out of military service as a gold medal reward, elite athletes returning home to the North after winning