Creating something new in his own way

Kim Mun Il, wrestling coach of the April 25 Combat Sports Team, is one of the top 10 coaches of the DPRK for 2024.

It is merely seven years since he started his career as coach.

But his creative efforts for something new enabled him to become one of the top 10 coaches.

He never stops creative speculation to improve his practical qualifications in line with the global trend of wrestling development, and applies advanced training means and methods in his own way.

Thanks to the efforts of the coach who applied training means and methods to suit the physical characteristics of players and constantly made exact demands on them, Ro Yu Chol became an ace capable of applying various techniques, including waist catch and log rolls, according to circumstances, departing from the mode of single arm gripping and rolling.

Ro won a gold medal in the men’s Greco-Roman 55kg category of the 2024 Asian Wrestling Championship held in April last year.

Victory based on search

DPRK players achieved good results in the men’s events in the adult category of the 22nd World Taekwon-Do Championships held last year, topping the country ranking.

Particularly, their victories in the events of individual heavyweight sparring and team sparring amazed the world.

It was the result of the tactical plan made by coach Ri Chol Rim’s strenuous scientific research.

In the course of making the preparations for the championships he detected one problem.

It was that his players fiercely attacked their opponents as soon as matches began but the rate of success was not high as compared to the frequency of the attacks. It might reveal their weak points to their rivals and make them suffer counterattacks.

After analysing and synthesizing the data on matches of the past, he drew up and introduced into training a tactical plan for counterattack his players should master for the matches with European players of tall stature.

The result was good as expected.

The DPRK players beat Europeans in the heavyweight matches, including 85kg and 92kg categories of the men’s individual sparring, and the men’s team sparring in the adult category of the 22nd World Taekwon-Do Championships, exalting the dignity and honour of the country, the home of Taekwon-Do. Ri Chol Rim was selected as one of the top 10 coaches of the DPRK for 2024.

Second-splitting delicacy

Sin Jong Rim, diving coach of the Sobaeksu Sports Team, is also one of the top 10 coaches of the DPRK for 2024.

During her playing career she won a gold medal at the women’s individual low board diving of the then First Military World Games and proved successful in other games, being awarded the title of Merited Athlete.

After graduating from Korea University of Physical Education to become a diving coach, she trained her divers to win 17 medals including five golds in international games, thus being awarded the title of People’s Athlete. Among the divers are Kim Kuk Hyang who took first place at the women’s individual 10m platform diving event of the 16th FINA World Championships and Pak Un Jong who took second place at the women’s individual 10m platform diving event of the 2015 Asian Age Group Swimming Championships.

In conformity with the characteristics of the event which finishes within one or two seconds, she guided the training of Jo Jin Mi as meticulously as splitting every second. Thus Jo took second place in the women's 10m platform synchronized and mixed synchronized diving events of the 2024 world underwater sports championships respectively.