Where other Asian Games nations are wearing brand-new kit for Nagoya, North Korea seem to be making do with the same team vests and tracksuits used for a decade or more.
“WE ARE WORLD LEADERS”
The latest fashion statement doesn’t matter to North Korea, but nutrition does, so athletes receive the best available diet.
“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” Reddy added.
The success post-COVID has naturally raised questions about what North Korean weightlifters were doing while the borders were sealed to the outside world.
But world doping authorities are back in the country.
In January 2024, the World Anti-Doping Agency lifted non-compliant restrictions on North Korea after testing missions were resumed.
The following month the International Testing Agency (ITA) conducted out-of-competition testing inside North Korea for the first time in four years.
The country’s athletes are subject to international standard testing now like everyone else and, according to their officials, there is no secret to their success.
“Our athletes put in so much hard work,” Jang Song Nam, manager of the North Korean weightlifting team, told AFP.
“Every gold medal is payback for our hardship over four years (of COVID-19 isolation). “We are world leaders now.”
