North Korea to ‘bring joy’ to Kim with 100 athletes at Asian Games in Japan

North Korea will send about 100 athletes to compete across 14 sports at the Asian Games in Japan next month, a senior official said, aiming to “bring joy to Marshal Kim Jong Un.” The nuclear-armed state suspended participation in international sporting competitions during the COVID-19 pandemic but returned at the Asian Games in China in 2023 and also took part in the Paris Olympics. The team for the regional Games in Nagoya and the Aichi region includes two Japan-based ethnic Koreans competing in women’s football and karate, said Ko Chol Ho, secretary general of North Korea’s Olympic committee. He noted that the delegation would be smaller than the one sent to the Hangzhou Games of 2023 but said he hoped it would win more medals.

Authoritarian North Korea won 11 golds last time, half of them in weightlifting. The official said that morale among the athletes was high for the event, which runs from Sept. 19 to Oct. 4, and they were motivated to win for their leader. North Korea has recently been hurling criticism at Japan, a former regional colonial power, over what Pyongyang describes as its remilitarization.