Kim Jong Un Let Us Usher In a New Heyday of Building a Sports Power in the Revolutionary Spirit of Paektu

Kim Jong Un

Let Us Usher In a New Heyday of Building a Sports Power in the Revolutionary Spirit of Paektu

Letter to Those Attending the Seventh National Conference of Sportspeople

March 25, Juche 104 (2015)

 

In these eventful days, when all the service personnel and people have turned out in the general offensive in the revolutionary spirit of Paektu and are registering successes in all fields of defending socialism and building a thriving nation, the Seventh National Conference of Sportspeople has opened.

The conference, which is being held amid the great interest of the whole country, will constitute an epoch-making occasion in further exalting the brilliance of the imperishable exploits performed by the great Comrades Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il for the development of the country’s sports and in carrying out the Party’s plan of building the country into a sports power.

Sports play a very important role in consolidating the national strength, adding lustre to the country’s prestige and honour, inspiring people with national dignity and pride and imbuing the whole society with revolutionary mettle.

The great Comrades Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, putting forward the development of sports as a matter that has an important bearing on the prosperity of the country and nation, indicated the road ahead of the Juche-based sports and wrote a new chapter in the history of building a sports power by dint of outstanding ideas and leadership.

In order to develop the country’s sports in line with the great leaders’ ideas and plan of developing Juche-based sports, our Party directs great efforts to the work of the sports sector.

Under the Party’s leadership a climate of attaching importance to sports has been created across the country, enthusiasm for sports is mounting as never before and our sportspeople have achieved excellent results at games. Cherishing the high expectations of the Party and their fellow people, our reliable sportspeople have made redoubled efforts and won many gold medals at the 30th Olympic Games and the subsequent international contests including world championships and Asian games, thus demonstrating the mettle and strength of Juche Korea, imbuing the service personnel and people with great national dignity and pride and encouraging them to perform fresh miraculous innovations and feats.

Under the Party’s close concern and thanks to the devoted efforts of our service personnel and working people, the Masikryong Ski Resort, Mirim Riding Club and other modern sports facilities have been set up on the world standard and such multi-functional sports facilities as the May Day Stadium, Pyongyang Indoor Stadium and Sports Village in Chongchun Street have been renovated in a short span of time; thus conditions have been provided for the sportspeople and working people to develop their sporting techniques and enjoy the sporting and cultural life to their heart’s content.

However, the work of the sports sector has yet to attain the proper level as compared to the Party’s demand and people’s expectations. Our overall sporting techniques lag behind the demand of the times and the trend of the world, and the level of scientification of sports and material and technical foundations of this sector are insufficient. Some officials still reveal the tendency of making little of sports, and rigid discipline and order have not been established in the sector.

Our Party expects that this conference will review and analyze the successes and experiences, shortcomings and lessons in the implementation of the Party’s policy on sports and take revolutionary measures for the development of sports so as to improve the work of the sports sector and open a broad avenue for building our country into a sports power.

It is our Party’s determination and firm will to raise the status of our country to that of a prestigious sports power within the coming few years by bringing about a revolutionary turn in the work of the sports sector.

Building a sports power is a patriotic undertaking aimed at translating into reality the plan and wish of the great leaders, who devoted their efforts to building ours into a country that prospers and grows stronger on the strength of sports. By defending and brilliantly carrying forward their Juche-oriented ideas and exploits of building  a  sports  power,  we  can  demonstrate  to  the whole world the resourcefulness and courage of Kim Il Sung’s nation, Kim Jong Il’s Korea, in the sports sector.

Building a sports power is a thrust area to which our Party attaches importance in building a thriving socialist country. Only when we step up the building of a sports power can we display higher the might of the military power, successfully build a socialist economic power and civilized nation and demonstrate the dignity of Juche Korea by fully preparing all the service personnel and people for national defence and labour.

We should raise the country’s sporting techniques up to the world standard, make sports mass-based and part of daily concern and improve the level of scientification of sports in a short span of time, thus bringing the Party’s plan of building a sports power to brilliant fruition.

The major objective our Party has put forward for building a sports power is to make our players win the Olympic Games, world championships and other international games and demonstrate the prestige and mettle of the country by radically developing the specialized sporting techniques of the country.

Sportspeople are standard-bearers and a shock force standing at the forefront in the building of a sports power. There are no other persons than the sportspeople, who make the flag of our Republic hoisted in the sky of other countries in peacetime; it is their sacred duty to exalt the prestige and honour of their country by winning gold medals. Cherishing the honourable duty of the revolutionary sportspeople in the Songun era and high expectations of their country and fellow people, they should become vanguard fighters in the struggle to implement the Party’s plan of building a sports power.

They should prepare themselves to be people possessed of the spirit and mettle of Paektu and strong in ideology and spirit and in physique and techniques and win international games one after another on the strength of excellent playing tactics of our own style.

“Let us rush forward towards the finish line of building a sports power in the revolutionary spirit of Paektu!”–this is the fighting slogan our sportspeople should hold up.

To run leading the world, to win thrillingly and to play games undauntedly to win them is the sporting spirit of Juche Korea which embodies the revolutionary spirit of Paektu.

All the sportspeople should burn their hearts with the revolutionary spirit of Paektu, the spirit of the blizzards of Paektu, and become reliable fighters of the Party, proud sons and daughters of their country and people who create new, amazing stories of heroic Korea in international games.

The main link in the whole chain of the effort for fully preparing sportspeople in terms of ideology, spirit, physique, techniques and tactics is to encourage them to do training intensely.

Training is a furnace for bringing up excellent sportspeople; the gold medals that exalt the honour of the country in games are assured by the sweat they break in training. Our sportspeople should regard their training programme as the combat order given by the Party and their training arena as a battle field for implementing the Party’s ideas and defending their country, and temper their ideology, will, physiques, techniques and tactics in the furnace of training done in the atmosphere of real games. In particular, they should be aware that only the players who are possessed of world-class special techniques can contribute to building a sports power by means of gold medals, and persistently strive to possess such techniques.

The role of coaches, who organize and oversee training and games, should be improved decisively.

The real abilities of players and teams and success in games are dependent on coaches. With a high ambition to become famous coaches who bring up world-class players, they should constantly improve their levels. They should do away with organizing training in a stereotyped manner and for form’s sake, work out realistic and scientific training plans, improve training methods and make strong demands on players so as to prepare them to cope with any circumstances skillfully in games.

We should create excellent playing tactics of our own style and actively introduce them.

Success in sports games is guaranteed by the superiority and effectiveness of playing tactics, together with the players’ ideological and spiritual, physical and technical preparedness. General Kim Jong Il presented the principles and methods of playing games with a high degree of ideological awareness, fighting spirit, speed and skills. Sportspeople should consistently hold fast to these principles and methods and continually create and perfect brilliant and flexible tactics so that they can win against the world-class aces fair and square.

What is important in perfecting and applying the tactics of our own style is to apply the offensive tactics of guerrilla style in games. This idea is a comprehensive embodiment and development of the above principles and methods of playing games with a high degree of ideological awareness, fighting spirit, speed and skills.

Officials and coaches in the sports sector should ensure that sportspeople, by applying the offensive tactics of guerrilla style in every sports event, take the initiative and win victory in all games. The associations of all sports events should perfect and actively apply effective and singular tactics and modes in line with the requirements of the offensive tactics of guerrilla style in the events of their fields.

Many competitions should be organized to make sportspeople fully prepare themselves ideologically and spiritually, physically and technically and actively apply the playing tactics of our own style. Competition is a process of sporting techniques and tactics being displayed and at the same time an important occasion in developing them to a new high. While experiencing the pleasure of a victor or the agony of a loser, players and coaches accumulate experiences or draw lessons and make redoubled efforts to perfect their playing techniques and tactics.

We should arrange nationwide games including the Republic Championships all the year round, and sports teams should frequently organize practice matches, check matches, challenge matches and home-and-away matches among them, so as to further develop sporting techniques. At the same time sportspeople should be made to take part in many international games to raise their technical levels and accumulate experiences in actual games.

Efforts should be directed to developing the events in which our players can excel.

The sports sector should select the events, which suit the characteristics of the constitution of Koreans and in whose games we have a tradition of achieving remarkable successes, as more prominent events and focus on them. It should first secure world supremacy in women’s football, marathon, weightlifting, boxing, table tennis, wrestling, judo, artistic gymnastics and archery, and then retain it. The development of these events as the major thrust should be followed by the development of physical training for national defence, maritime physical culture, winter sports and other events. By doing so, it can secure Asian supremacy and, moreover, world supremacy in many events. It should widely encourage Taekwon-Do and ssirum (Korean-style wrestling), traditional sports events of Korea, thereby making the whole country practice Taekwon-Do to demonstrate its spirit to the world and further developing its skills and the traditional techniques of ssirum.

We should improve the training of reserves and officials of the sports sector.

We should train reserve sportspeople in a prospective way. Training reserves in the sports sector in which the cycle of change of generations is shorter than in any other sectors is a very important undertaking decisive of the future of the development of the country’s sporting techniques. The bright prospect of the development of sports depends on how many competent reserves that can carry forward the supremacy in prominent events and shoulder the future of sports are trained.

It should be regarded as a principle to select as reserves those with intelligence, sturdy physique and suitable constitution for each event. The sports sector should select reserves on a regular basis and in a steady way in contact with Party and youth league organizations and the education sector.

While selecting appropriate people as reserves, it should train them with much effort. City and county juvenile sports schools should intensify education in basic techniques in line with the demands of the Party and the world trend of the development of sports and thus bring up promising reserves in a systematic way.

Efforts should be made to enhance the level of officials in the sports sector, including leading officials, team coaches and gym teachers.

Educational institutions in the sports sector should select and educate promising people and drastically improve the quality of sports education and training, thus bringing up a large number of competent sports officials. Korea University of Physical Education should improve the content, method, conditions and environment of education as required by the developing reality, create an example of training sports officials and generalize them among institutions responsible for training sports officials.

Refresher courses for sports officials in active service should be operated properly. It is important to send them to educational institutions in a planned way for refresher courses and organize workshops for them in a substantial way so as constantly to improve their technical level and qualifications. Meetings for swapping experiences, demonstration lectures, workshops and the like should be organized on a regular basis to improve their practical level.

We should make sports mass-based and part of everyday life and thus get the entire population to enjoy playing sports and the whole country to seethe with enthusiasm for sports.

To make sports mass-based and part of everyday concern is an important policy of our Party in building a sports power. Sports in our country are an undertaking for people and by people. Only when all sports events are made mass-based and part of everyday life, can all people be in good health and proactively contribute to national defence and building a thriving nation. Carrying out this policy is also needed rapidly to develop the country’s professional sports sector.

Schools should improve and intensify physical training.

Only then can they bring up students into sturdy pillars for the future and produce many fine reserve sportspeople from among them. In their physical training schools should focus on increasing their height, building up their bodies in a balanced way and making them possessed of basic sports knowledge and techniques of more than one sports event. Due attention should be paid to physical training for national defence which is conducive to cultivating their bravery, perseverance and fortitude. Schools should raise the level of gym teachers and radically improve the quality of physical education. All of them should furnish themselves with sufficient sports equipment, organize various after-school sporting activities suited to the students’ characteristics and run the specialized groups for sports events regularly.

Organs, enterprises and cooperative farms should conduct brisk sporting activities.

They should arrange various sporting activities, including the health-promoting exercise, mass rhythmic exercise and health-promoting Taekwon-Do, on a regular basis and in keeping with their actual conditions, and organize different kinds of sports and other recreational games on holidays, major anniversaries and days-off so that people can take an active part in sporting activities with competitive spirit. Families, too, should often take health-promoting exercises like morning exercise and recreational games.

The National Inter-Provincial Games and similar ones should be organized among cities, counties, organs, enterprises and cooperative farms to help the working people build up their bodies and minds and make enthusiasm for sports run higher. When a game is to be played, scrupulous arrangements for cheering should be made to enliven the atmosphere, boost the players’ morale and demonstrate the sense of organization and unity of the collective.

It is important vigorously to wage the movement for winning the titles of Model Sports County and Model Sports Unit and make effective arrangements for the sporting period.

Scientification of sports should be stepped up.

The key to victory in building a sports power is to put sports on a scientific basis. This is a powerful impetus to the development of sports. The present reality, in which the sporting techniques are developing at fast speed worldwide, shows that the one that leads the competition of sports science and techniques becomes the victor but the one that lags behind, the loser. When the soaring mental strength of our reliable sportspeople, who are eager to demonstrate the dignity and honour of their country to the whole world, is supported by advanced sports science and techniques, great progress will be made in the development of the country’s sports.

All the officials, players and coaches in the sports sector need to learn sports science knowledge and techniques, overcome the tendencies to cling to the previous outdated experience and improve and develop all the realms of the work of the sports sector, including training, playing games, education and rearing reserves on the basis of modern sports science.

The sports science sector should develop the techniques of each sports event in our own way from the Juche-oriented standpoint. In particular, it should direct primary effort to the research into solving the scientific and technical problems arising in the development of those events to which the Party gives priority. Along with this, it should intensify research into physiology, biochemistry and other basic sciences, put the work for conditioning, psychological regulation and nutrition supply for players on a scientific basis, and develop different nutritious foods for the improvement of their physical abilities. It should channel efforts into inventing state-of-the-art sports equipment and studying how to produce modern ones including uniforms of each event with domestic materials.

Brisk information work related with sports science and techniques should be conducted so that players and coaches can be well-informed of the world trend of technical development of each event and of the teams they would play against in international games, and cope with the trend and the foreign teams.

National attention should be paid to the effort for providing full conditions for developing sports science, including data, up-to-date equipment, measuring instruments and reagents.

The Academy of Sports Science claims a significant share in putting sports on a scientific basis. It should build up its ranks of scientists and researchers, work out sports science development plans in a far-sighted and realistic way and in line with the actual conditions of our country and the trend of development of modern sports science, and launch a vigorous campaign to go beyond the cutting edge in its work.

Members of the February 17 Scientists and Technicians Shock Brigade, who have been dispatched to the Ministry of Physical Culture and Sports, should develop and introduce computer-aided guided training program, sports equipment and fatigue-relieving and nutritious foods so as to provide a scientific and technical guarantee for achieving successes in sports games.

In order successfully to carry out all the tasks arising in the building of a sports power, it is important to enhance the functions and role of sports guidance organs in every possible way.

The National Sports Guidance Committee should improve the work system in the sports sector in line with the Party’s plan and the requirements of building a sports power, discuss and resolve in time important issues that need national concern to develop the sports of the country, and take appropriate measures. The Secretariat of the National Sports Guidance Committee should play a greater role to raise a strong wind of sports across the country, give effective guidance over all relevant units, including the sports guidance committees at different levels, in their efforts to implement the Party’s policy on sports, and make the members of the National Sports Guidance Committee and the sponsoring organizations render active help, both material and moral, to the units in their charge.

The Ministry of Physical Culture and Sports should draw up a scientific national strategy for developing sports true to the Party’s intention of building a sports power and carry it out stage by stage and in an effective way. Officials of the ministry should rid themselves of the short-sighted style of working–busying themselves only with making arrangements for competitions at hand; they should foresee and plan everything with an eye to the future and press on with them in a persevering manner. They should take hold of the main link in the whole chain of implementing the Party’s policy on sports, go among sports teams and their members to give full rein to their spiritual strength, and make positive efforts to raise the level of scientification of sports. It is necessary to ensure balanced development of sports teams at central and provincial levels and those attached to organs and enterprises and make them compete fiercely among themselves to develop the country’s sports in an all-round way. Effective work order and stringent discipline should be established in the sports sector as in the army.

The Pyongyang Municipal Sports Guidance Committee and similar committees at provincial, city and county levels should give proper guidance over all sectors and all units in their respective regions so that they can implement to the letter the Party’s policy of making sports mass-based and part of daily concern, and help and lead forward the sports teams and juvenile sports schools.

Positive external activities should be conducted to create an environment and conditions favourable for developing the country’s sports. The sports sector should work tactfully with international sports organizations on the principle of prioritizing the dignity and interests of our Republic, and organize invitation and home-and-away matches and joint training frequently.

We should bring about a radical improvement in solidifying the material foundations of the sports sector.

The building of a sports power cannot be successful unless it is underpinned by adequate material conditions. The Party and the state should pay close concern to laying solid material foundations for developing the sports sector.

We should build modern sports facilities including gymnasiums, stadiums, swimming pools, firing ranges and physical training centres in Pyongyang and provinces, and sports parks in different places to link the whole country with a network of sports facilities. We should also make regular arrangements for keeping those facilities in a good state of repair and maintenance.

We need to modernize sports equipment factories and ensure high quality of their products to make them widely available to our sportspeople and other citizens. We should make proactive efforts to produce necessary sports equipment by domestic exertions. We should spruce up training centres and provide sportspeople with ample conditions for conducting training all the year round.

We need to pay close concern to improving supply services for sportspeople. We should build up supply service bases for the sports sector and put their production on a normal track to provide sportspeople with sufficient amounts and various kinds of soft drinks and nutritious foods.

The state should adopt steps to provide funds necessary for developing the country’s sports, and actively help the sports sector secure them on its own.

Social interest in sports should be increased to develop the country’s sporting techniques rapidly and make enthusiasm for sports run higher.

The key to heightening social interest in sports is to make officials have a correct attitude towards sports. Officials of all sectors and all units should attach importance to sports true to the Party’s intention, work hard to implement its policy on sports and become models in mass-based sporting activities.

We need to give social prominence to sportspeople and accord them preferential treatment. We should ensure that those, who have demonstrated the honour of the country in international games, are respected as patriots and heroes and receive appropriate political commendation and material reward. By doing so, we can make other people respect and look up to them with envy. The Party and the state should direct great concern to the living conditions of sportspeople. Mass media should promptly and widely disseminate the news and information about sports games, and the sector of art and literature should create many works that can inspire sportspeople with vigour and courage and kindle sporting enthusiasm among the masses.

Party guidance over sports should be strengthened.

Party organizations at all levels should regard as their major concern the undertakings geared to realizing the Party’s plan of building a sports power, and give effective policy-oriented guidance over them.

Party organizations should thoroughly establish the Party’s leadership system in the sports sector and conduct effective organizational and political work to implement the instructions of the great leaders and the Party’s policy on sports to the letter. They should build up the ranks of officials in the sports sector with those who are loyal to the Party and competent enough to play a significant role in developing the country’s sports.

The Party organizations in the sports sector should conduct positive political work, as is done on the front line, to give full play to the spiritual strength of sportspeople. They should be efficient in conducting among sportspeople the five-point educational work with a focus on education in the greatness of the leaders so as to bring them up to be the Party’s faithful fighters who can score remarkable successes in sports games keeping in mind the benevolence of their Party and leaders and the preciousness of their homeland. They should give prominence to the prototypes of the Songun era produced in the sports sector and encourage other sportspeople to learn from their spiritual world, training style and moral traits.

The gold medalists who have exalted the dignity and honour of their country to the whole world leaving shining traces of their lofty lives, will go down in the history of building a Juche-oriented sports power as heroes and true patriots in the memory of our Party, our country and our people.

I firmly believe that with this conference as a momentum all our officials and sportspeople will strive to bring about a fresh turn in building a sports power and thus live up to the Party’s trust and expectations.