Oddly, Jong Song Ok, gold medal winner in the women’s marathon at the 1999 World Athletics Championships in Seville, has been excluded from a list of “Our nation’s praiseworthy daughters” released by North Korea propaganda forum Uriminzokkiri (being amongst our nation), arousing suspicions that she may have run into trouble.
Uriminzokkiri, a website run by the North Korean Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland, ran an article on the 15th about North Korea’s most famous female athletes. The list included famous names such as table tennis player Park Young Soon, runner Shin Geum Dan, judo player Gye Soon Hee, markswoman Park Jong Ran and gymnast Kim Gwang Sook, but failed to mention Jong Song Ok.
In the late 1990s, during the March of Tribulation, Jong was considered by the North Korean authorities to be the nation’s top female athlete, even though legendary judo player Gye Soon Hee outshone her in terms of international success.
In Gye’s three Olympic appearances, she competed in three different weight classes and won one gold, one silver and a bronze medal for her performances. In a number of Judo World Championships, she also won a number of medals; four gold, one silver, and one bronze.
However, Gye’s official accolades stopped with the title of “People’s Athlete,” whereas Jong was not only awarded that, but also received North Korea’s highest designation, “Heroine of the Republic.” Jong was apparently bestowed this honor because her remarks after winning the World Track and Field Championship so moved Kim Jong Il at the time. Jong told foreign reporters, “I ran longing for the people’s Dear Leader Kim Jong Il. This was a great encouragement, and the source of my strength.”
Jong is also known to have been awarded a Mercedes Benz and the vast sum of six million dollars in prize money. Her family was given the right to live in Pyongyang, took up residence in a high-class apartment in the Botong River-district, and it was later rumored that her father avoided a prison sentence thanks to his daughter. At the time, he was charged with traffic violations and faced imprisonment in a reeducation camp.
For a time Jong served as Undersecretary for the Track and Field Association of the North Korean Physical Culture and Sports Guidance Committee, and participated as a guide in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
It is extremely odd, then, for such a woman to be excluded from mention in North Korean propaganda lauding “our nation’s praiseworthy daughters.”
Uriminzokkiri even names the late table tennis star Park Young Soon, who won two gold medals at the World Table Tennis Championship in the 1970s, but died from a terminal illness a decade later. This makes the omission of Jong all the more surprising, and gives rise to conjecture that it was related to the kind of “political problems” unique to North Korea.
Suspicions are further fueled by the fact that Jong’s name was inexplicably dropped from the roster of representatives for the 12th Supreme People’s Assembly, a position to which she was elected last year. Jong had been doing a good job, it seemed, receiving political recognition for her work as a representative in the 11th Supreme People’s Assembly between 2003 and 2009.
Some of the other female athletes Uriminzokkiri included in its list are runner Shin Geum Dan, who set the world record for the 400m and 800m races at an international track and field championship held in Moscow in 1962, and Park Jong Ran, who won first place at the World Shooting Championship. The article also highlighted the achievements of Kim Kwang Sook, who ranked first in the uneven bars at the World Gymnastics Championship in Indianapolis at the age of just fourteen, receiving a perfect score of 10.0.
