North Korea’s state media breaks silence over rare medals at Paris Olympics

Table tennis silver medallists Jong Sik Ri and Kum Yong Kim could be seen posing with bronze medallists Jonghoon Lim and Yubin Shin of South Korea after breaking an eight-year run without a medal at the Summer Olympics

Two days after its table tennis team won North Korea its first Olympic medal in eight years at the Summer Games in Paris, the country’s government-controlled media belatedly and quietly covered the feat on Thursday.

In a terse, four-sentence report, North Korea’s state news agency KCNA described how Ri Jong Sik and Kim Kum Yong prevailed in the quarter-finals and semi-finals.

Bronze medallist Jonghoon Lim of South Korea takes selfie with Yubin Shin of South Korea and gold medallists Chuqin Wang of China and Yingsha Sun of China with silver medallists Jong Sik Ri of North Korea and Kum Yong Kim of North Korea (REUTERS)

The report then detailed how the pair came up short against the world number one duo, China’s Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha, in the mixed doubles final, losing 4-2 on Tuesday.

The KCNA report also noted North Korea’s Jo Jin Mi and Kim Mi Rae took silver in the women’s synchronised 10-metre platform diving event on Wednesday, without elaborating.

North Korea won no medals at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, and its COVID-19 border policies led it to skip the Tokyo Summer Olympics held in 2021.

North Korea then missed the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing after it was suspended from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) until the end of that year for failing to send a team to Tokyo.

Ri Jong Sik and Kim Kum Yong made rare comments to international media at a press conference in Paris, and posed for a selfie with the Chinese and South Korean teams on the medal podium.

South Korea's Lim Jonghoon, right, takes a selfie with North Korea's Ri Jong-sik, left, and Kim Kum Yong, second left, China's Wang Chuqin, background, and Sun Yingsha, center, and his teammate Shin Yubin (AP)

As the lowest-ranked of 16 teams in the table tennis competition, they first knocked out defending Olympic champions Japan.