Last year, the DPRK player Kim Kum Yong emerged as a table tennis ace in Asia.

Needless to say, her international success delighted many people.

After her matches were broadcast on TV, questions about her residence and her parents were on everyone’s lips.

Kim Kum Yong grew up in Unjong District, Pyongyang. Her father is a lecturer at a university and her mother is an ordinary housewife. There is no sportsman in her family except that her father likes playing table tennis.

She took up table tennis as a little girl whose eyes were barely visible when she stood in front of a table tennis table. At that time, an instructor couple taught the young girl, who had to stand on a stool to hit the ball, at a sports school in Unjong District.

Thanks to their painstaking efforts to nurture the distinctive features of the short, left-handed girl, Kum Yong entered the rankings at a national table-tennis tournament several years later and was selected into a sports club. There, under the guidance of coach Kim Yun Mi, she acquired unique, sharp and strong attacking skills, rapid movement and close-range defence capability.

“As the saying goes, a little body often harbours a great soul. Kum Yong is a bold player and well prepared in psychology,” said the coach.

She was the first to play among the DPRK team participating in the women’s team event against China at the 2024 Asian Table Tennis Championships. Her opponent was holding the first place in the world rankings.

She was not in the least upset by her lack of international experience and thrashed the opponent 3-1 by mounting safe defence and strong counterattack. Media outlets of various countries praised her outstanding ability, high psychological quality and defensive and counteroffensive techniques. They reported that Kim Kum Yong defeated the Japanese opponent in the women’s singles final by demonstrating her technical and tactical superiority and retained the leading position in the Asian table tennis world, adding that her victory was not only a personal victory but also the manifestation of the mental power of the DPRK table tennis team who are fighting strenuously and advancing courageously in unity.

Kum Yong, on the day of her triumphant return with the trophy and gold medal, received lots of bouquets of congratulation. The champion of short stature and childlike looks said to those who expressed their surprise holding her small hands that being small and young does not mean you are a loser and that she felt confident as there was no reason to fear and was determined to win at any cost, adding the DPRK is small but it is strong.