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.