DPRK player Ri Song Gum won the women’s 49kg weightlifting in the 19th Asian Games last year by lifting 92kg in snatch and 124kg in jerk (new world, Asian and Asian Games records), with 216kg in total (new world, Asian and Asian Games records).

Born in Nyongbyon County of North Phyongan Province, she began to play weightlifting at juvenile extracurricular sports school of the county and worked hard to acquire basic techniques of the sport there with an ambition of becoming a world champion. Later, she was picked out by the Ryomyong Sports Club and the April 25 Heavy Sports Team.

In those years she took part in over a dozen international events and fully demonstrated her power.

In particular, she collected three gold medals in the 44kg category of women’s weightlifting at the 2014 Asian Youth and Junior Weightlifting Championships and set a new world record in jerk. It was an occasion for her, a newcomer, to show her great development potential.

Later, Ri Song Gum won golds in the 2015 World Weightlifting Championships, the 29th Summer Universiad and the 18th Asian Games, fully displaying her ability as a promising weightlifter.

She also set two new national juvenile and six national records on the domestic front.

“It is a merit of Ri Song Gum that she trains hard by herself to complete every detailed element of technical movements as well as the daily training assignment. Exact demands on herself helped her become a sportswoman beloved by the people,” said Kye Song Il, weightlifting coach of the April 25 Heavy Sports Team.

Ri Song Gum has been selected as one of the top 10 players of the DPRK for the fourth time until 2023.

Competent weightlifting coach

There is always a good teacher behind a good student.

Ri Song Gum’s nomination as one of top 10 players of the country on four occasions is closely associated with the efforts of coach Kye Song Il who trained her well.

Kye is a competent coach who trained weightlifting stars. They include Song Kuk Hyang who earned three gold medals in the women’s 71kg category weightlifting at the 19th Asian Games and the 2023 IWF Grand Prix.

He usually devotes much time and energy to selecting players with a suitable physical constitution and developing and applying scientific training methods.

At the time of selection, Song Gum was physically strong, but had some weak points in her techniques.

Kye Song Il applied effective training means and methods to the training of Song Gum and at the same time made exact demands to her to correctly acquire the technical movements in snatch and jerk.

When her techniques improved to a certain level, he introduced advanced training methods into her training while increasing its intensity.

Thanks to his scientific education and training, women weightlifters including Ri Song Gum rose to fame as weightlifting stars fully prepared both physically and technically.

Kye Song Il was also chosen as one of the top 10 coaches of the country several times.