Winter Sports in N.

Korea
2024-01-17

ⓒ YONHAP News

The 2024 Gangwon Winter Youth Olympics, a festival for people the world over, is
ready to open.

The international sporting event will take place in Gangwon Province in the
eastern part of South Korea from January 19 to February 1. About 1,900 young
athletes from some 80 countries will compete in 15 disciplines across seven
sports for two weeks. The first edition of the Youth Winter Olympics hosted in
Asia will showcase the essence of winter sports. We can’t help but wonder what
sports are played in winter in North Korea. Today, we’ll take a look at North
Korea’s winter sports with Seong Mun-jeong, senior researcher at the Korea
Institute of Sport Science.

Popular winter sports include skiing, snowboarding and skating, with many people
flocking to ski resorts and skating rinks during the cold winter. Do North Korean
people also enjoy these sports?

In North Korea, most winter sports are played in the form of fun activities.
Even in freezing weather, children come out to the fields to enjoy winter
activities. In the North, there’s a saying that jangdokdae(장독대), or the
outdoor place to store traditional jars, and children never freeze. On snowy
days, children divide into teams to have a snowball fight and spin their tops
on the ice. Children all over the world love snow, don’t they? North Korean
children are no exception. When winter comes, many children in the North
go to ice rinks or frozen rivers and rice paddies. There, they slide over the ice
in a sleigh. They mostly ride on a small, single-bladed sled.

Winter in North Korea is called the “harsh season.” In the Kaema Plateau region,
winter starts in October and continues through May the following year. North
Korea’s winter comes earlier and goes later than South Korea’s. Although winter in
North Korea is bitterly cold, children love to enjoy outdoor winter activities. It
snows a lot in North Korea. Also, the country has many mountains and slopes,
which turn into a playground in winter. Children ride a sled and spin their tops on
the ice to compete each other to see who is stronger.

Citizens in Pyongyang, compared to those in other regions, have a higher social

and economic status and enjoy various benefits in leisure life. In winter, they also
enjoy skating.

While children enjoy winter activities such as sledding, ice fishing is popular
among adults.

At the famous Hwacheon Mountain Trout Ice Festival in South Korea, many
participants fish mountain trout under the thick ice on the stream with
artificial lures. In cold winter in North Korea, many also come to the Taedong
River and drill holes in the ice and troll for fish through the ice. South Korean
anglers typically use fishing paste, while their North Korean counterparts
use live earthworms for bait.

When the Taedong River that runs through Pyongyang is covered with ice,
Pyongyang citizens are engrossed in ice fishing. North Korea has designated
“months for winter sports” since the 1980s to help locals improve their physical
strength. For example, winter sports for January and February include skating,
skiing and sledding. Also in December, a sports competition is held.

The Osandok Prize Sports Contest is North Korea’s largest sports competition
held in winter. The name comes from Osandok, Hoeryong in North Hamgyong
Province, which is the birthplace of Kim Jong-suk, the mother of former leader
Kim Jong-il.

At the contest, sports teams from all around the country compete in multiple
events including ice hockey, figure skating and skiing. The current Kim Jong-un
regime has actively promoted skiing, in particular.

In 2016, leader Kim Jong-un visited Ryanggang Province to observe skiers in

training. At the time, the leader highly praised skiing. Kim is known to have
enjoyed skiing while studying in Switzerland in his teens. He built the Masikryong
Ski Resort in 2013.

Kim Jong-un studied in Bern, Switzerland for six years. There, he

experienced skiing in winter and basketball in summer. Apparently
influenced by his experience, the leader decided to build the Masikryong Ski
Resort. North Korea actually built the top-of-the-line ski facilities in a very
short period of time.

The Masikryong Ski Resort is four times the size of the Yongpyeong Ski
Resort, which is the largest ski resort in South Korea. The ski slopes in the
huge North Korean ski resort are 40 to 120 meters wide, and the ski courses
include those for beginners and advanced skiers. When the ski resort was
under construction, North Korea even created a political slogan called
“Masikryong Speed” to encourage the workers to complete the ski resort
quickly.

The Masikryong Ski Resort even appears in a children’s song. North Korea touts it
as the biggest construction project of leader Kim Jong-un.

Located near Wonsan in North Korea’s Gangwon Province on the east coast, the
ski resort covers an area of about 14 million square meters. It has ten slopes with
a total length of 50 kilometers and over 400 hotel rooms.

North Korea completed the supersized ski resort in just over a year, as a result of
the so-called “speed battle,” which refers to a campaign of loyalty unique to North
Korea. It aims to mobilize labor to produce the best result in the shortest period
time.

Skiing is not a popular sport in North Korea. Most North Korean residents cannot
afford to buy high-priced ski gear. Despite the reality, why does North Korea put
emphasis on skiing?

Many questioned whether North Korea had enough skiers to use the new ski
resort. But North Korea had a different purpose. Leader Kim Jong-un knew
that South Korea would host the PyeongChang Winter Olympics in 2018.
North Korea probably thought that some events of the Winter Games could
be held in North Korea. With this purpose in mind, the North built the ski
resort that would be capable enough to hold some games of the Winter
Olympics.

North Korean media say that foreign ski resorts usually have an elevation
difference of about 200 to 400 meters between the starting point and the
arrival area, with the slope angle measured at 12 to 20 degrees. The media
claim that the elevation difference in the North Korean ski resort reaches
700 meters so it is fully equipped with slopes for advanced skiers.

In July 2011, the South Korean alpine town of PyeongChang was named as the
host city for the 2018 Winter Olympics. That year, Kim Jong-un was named
supreme commander of the armed forces in North Korea and started his rule,
following the death of his father. Afterwards, North Korea signaled its intention to
host some events of the PyeongChang Winter Games.

In 2015, a pro-North Korean newspaper based in Japan known as the Chosun

Sinbo raised the idea of splitting some events of the PyeongChang Games with
North Korea and mentioned the Masikryong Ski Resort as a competition venue.

But the two Koreas stopped short of sharing the PyeongChang Winter Olympics.
North Korea had to be satisfied with the joint training with the South at the
Masikryong Ski Resort ahead of the PyeongChang Games.

North Korea issued commemorative stamps featuring the theme of winter sports
in 2022. Although North Korea did not participate in the Beijing Winter Olympics,
citing the global spread of COVID-19, the commemorative stamps showed that
the country still supported the Beijing Games diplomatically. Actually, North Korea
has shown keen interest in the Winter Olympics overall. How has it performed at
the previous Winter Games?

In the 1960s and the early 1970s, winter sports were very active in North
Korea. As a matter of fact, North Korea won a medal at the Winter Olympics
before South Korea. At the 1964 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck, Austria,
North Korean athlete Han Pil-hwa(한필화) won a silver medal in the 3,000-
meter speed skating event to become the first Asian woman to capture a
Winter Olympics silver medal. It was a great achievement, indeed.

North Korea has participated in nine Winter Olympics so far, winning one silver
and one bronze.

At the 1992 Albertville Games in France, Hwang Ok-sil ranked third in the
women’s 500-meter short track speed skating event to take home the bronze
medal and North Korea’s second Winter Olympics medal.

At the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, 22 North Korean athletes competed

in five disciplines. The North set a record of sending the largest number of
athletes to the largest number of sports for the Winter Olympics that the country
has ever participated. At the PyeongChang Games, North Korean figure skaters
stood out.

Figure skaters representing North Korea include Kim Hyuk(김혁) and Nam
Hye-yong(남혜영), who won a gold medal in pair skating at the 1986 Sapporo
Winter Asian Games. At the 2011 Winter Asian Games, North Korea’s Ri Ji-
hyang(리지향) and Tae Won-hyuk(태원혁) took the bronze medal in pair
skating. Also, Kim Un-ha and Ri Mok-ran(리목란) are gaining popularity in
North Korea, like Olympic figure skating champion Kim Yu-na in South
Korea.

At the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Games, the North Korean figure skating
pairs of Ryom Tae-ok(렴대옥) and Kim Ju-sik(김주식) broke their own personal
record on their first Olympic stage to finish 13th place overall. The two
athletes made their debut at the Ice Challenge in Graz, Austria, in October
2015 to take fifth place.

The pair of Ryom Tae-ok and Kim Ju-sik made history by ranking 13th at the
PyeongChang Olympics, the best result in North Korean figure skating history.
However, no North Korean player has attracted attention on the international
stage since then. That is because North Korea’s winter sports facilities are so
inadequate that it is difficult to produce good results in the global arena.

Even if North Korea has ideal natural conditions, there should be sports
facilities and excellent athletes to actually capitalize on those conditions.
Unfortunately, that’s not the case in North Korea. The impoverished North
finds it difficult to build top-class facilities and provide continuous support
to athletes. All things considered, it is quite challenging for the country to
raise the level of its athletic prowess to that of 1964, when speed skater Han
Pil-hwa won a silver medal at the Winter Olympics. To reach that level,
young athletes should receive consistent training in a good environment.
But there aren’t many ice rinks in North Korea. Only a few people can get
training in a limited way, and North Korean athletes have many limitations in
performing outstandingly on the world stage.

North Korea has ideal conditions for enjoying winter sports, as it has cold winter
with a lot of snow as well as steep mountains. Locals are also greatly interested in
winter sports. Unlike summer sports, however, winter sports require expensive
gear and it costs to maintain relevant facilities. For North Korea facing economic
difficulties, it is not easy to provide support to winter sports.

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