A Record-Breaking Week in Nagoya
North Korea's weightlifters have been the standout performers at the Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, Japan, collecting five gold medals and two silvers from seven events by Friday night. They had also set seven world records, less than halfway through the seven-day weightlifting programme. Ri Song Gum opened the campaign with gold and three world records in the women's 49kg class. A few hours later, compatriot Kang Hyon Gyong dominated the women's 53kg category to take gold. On Friday, Oh Kwang Ok added three more world records on her way to gold in the women's 57kg division.[S1][S2][S3]
The results continue a remarkable run for North Korea since the country ended its self-imposed Covid isolation. At the Hangzhou Asian Games in September 2023, the team set six world records and won six gold medals. At the 2024 world championships in Manama, Bahrain, North Korean lifters won 45 medals across all categories, 26 of them gold, with China next best on 14. A year earlier in Norway, North Korea again topped the standings with 17 golds. The team's manager, Chang Song Nam, attributed the success to the athletes' hard work during four years of pandemic isolation.[S1][S2][S3]
Targeting Los Angeles 2028
North Korea did not send athletes to the delayed Tokyo Olympics because it sealed its borders during the pandemic. After the Hangzhou Asian Games in September 2023, it was too late to qualify for weightlifting at Paris 2024. That means the 2028 Los Angeles Games would be the country's first Olympic appearance in 12 years. Ri Song Gum, 28, said she was ready to move up to the 53kg category, the lowest women's weight class at the next Olympics, as she chases the only title missing from her collection. Oh Kwang Ok said the 2028 Games were her target and that she would try her best to win gold in Los Angeles, adding that world records are not enough.[S1][S2][S3]
The Machinery Behind the Medals
North Korea's success is especially striking for an impoverished country where food is in short supply. Shreyas Reddy, a North Korea analyst at the website NK News, said the regime has long viewed sports as a powerful propaganda tool and uses sporting success to spread its narratives about the strength of socialist ideology. He added that Pyongyang's sporting authorities focus their meagre resources very scientifically, pouring them into sports that rely on controllable elements such as strength and technique rather than natural-born brilliance and flair. In weightlifting, coaches visit primary schools to handpick children with the right physical attributes and potential for intense training, developing them into physically powerful and technically consistent competitors.[S2]
While other Asian Games nations wear brand-new kit in Nagoya, North Korea appear to be making do with the same team vests and tracksuits used for a decade or more. Fashion does not matter to the team, but nutrition does, and athletes receive the best available diet. Reddy said that despite North Korea's well-documented food scarcity issues, the regime strategically allocates its limited resources to sports where it believes it has the best chance of success. The post-Covid success has raised questions about what North Korean weightlifters were doing while the borders were sealed, but world doping authorities are back in the country. In January 2024, the World Anti-Doping Agency was reported to have resumed its activities there.[S2]
