Sin Kum Dan

Among the DPRK sportspersons who have won gold medals in international competitions and exalted dignity and honour of the country is Sin Kum Dan, woman athlete.

Sin was very fond of sports, especially running, since she was young. While working as a lathe operator at the Huichon Machine-tool Factory, she continued to do physical exercise.

She showed her talent for the first time at a sports game held at the factory on May Day in 1958. At that time she breasted the finishing tapes in 100-metre and 400-metre races.

With the event as a momentum, Sin started her running career the following autumn.

As she had lacked basic training, she intensified training with redoubled efforts.

During the winter of 1958-1959, she ran on the sawdust tracks for three hours or more every day. In February alone, she ran a total distance of 199 kilometres in training. She also repeated running 200 metres in 34-35 seconds 12 times a day, which surpassed the norm of training of the famous male athletes.

Her indomitable spirit and perseverance paid off after several months, when she set a new national record.

She also cut a conspicuous figure in international games since 1960. In July that year she won her first gold medal and set a new world record in the 800-metre race at the Znamensky Brothers Prize International Athletics Tournament held in the former Soviet Union.

She won consecutive gold medals and renewed the world records at international games, including the aforementioned tournament held the following year and the first GANEFO (Games for the New Emerging Forces) held in Jakarta, Indonesia, in November 1963.

Sin was recognized as a star in the world athletic field in the 1960s, for she set eleven  new world records and won many medals, including 28 golds, in international games.

She was awarded the title of People’s Athlete of the DPRK in October 1966.

After retiring from playing career, she acted as a coach and trained a large number of athletes. She won the Kim Il Sung Prize in 1972.

In spite of her advanced age, she still devotes her wisdom and effort to the development of sports science.