Pyongyang, March 26 (KCNA) — The 7th National Conference of Sportspersons was held at the Pyongyang Indoor Stadium on Wednesday.
Present there were members of the State Physical Culture and Sports Guidance Commission, chairpersons of the provincial, city and county physical culture and sports guidance commissions, officials of sports guidance organs at all levels, sports units and units supporting sports field, officials concerned, players, coaches, teachers and researchers who set an example in carrying out the party’s sports policy and members of the sports delegation of the General Association of Korean Residents in Japan.
Read out there was letter “Let Us Usher in a New Heyday of Building a Sporting Power in the Revolutionary Spirit of Paektu” Marshal Kim Jong Un sent to the participants in the 7th National Conference of Sportspersons.
Ri Il Hwan, department director of the C.C., the Workers’ Party of Korea and vice-chairman of the State Physical Culture and Sports Guidance Commission, made a report.
The reporter said that the conference serves as an important occasion in strikingly demonstrating the justice and invincibility of the WPK’s idea of attaching importance to sports and providing a milestone of an epochal turn in the country’s sports development.
He went on:
The history of the sports development of Juche Korea has been the one of indefatigable devotion and efforts made by President Kim Il Sung and leader Kim Jong Il who put forward the sports as an important work in demonstrating the national power and preparing all the people for labor and defence and paid deep attention to the sports development all their lives.
The President gave an origin to building the people’s sports and provided the glorious tradition of Juche-oriented sports amid the flame of the anti-Japanese revolution and formed the Sports Union of north Korea on Nov. 1, Juche 34 (1945), opening up the bright future of sports of new Korea.
Kim Jong Il put forward the idea of attaching importance to sports as the consistent policy of our party and published many famous works, providing important guidelines for sports development.
He advanced the idea of Songun sports for the first time in history and energetically led the overall sports including mass sports, development of sports technique and the building of sports facilities to bring about a revolutionary turn, thereby ushering in a heyday of sports development.
The DPRK’s sports have now greeted the greatest heyday of their development under the wise leadership of Kim Jong Un.
He gave famous formulation that when sports have become popular and they are made an inseparable part of the daily life enjoyed by all the people to stir up the whole country with the hot wind of sports, and when sportspersons win titles in international games to demonstrate the dignity and might of Songun Korea, that is precisely the sporting power. This provided a clear goal and a shortcut to outpacing the other countries in sports with the idea of attaching importance to the sports as the strategic line of building a highly civilized socialist nation.
Kim Jong Un’s leadership over the sports is being recorded with the epic of boundless love and trust for sportspersons.
The reporter referred to the successes made in the sports in the new century of Juche under the wise leadership of Kim Jong Un, calling for bringing about a drastic turn in the building of a sporting power.
Taking the floor were Kim Kwang Min, soccer coach of the April 25 Sports Team, Ra Un Sim, football player of the Amnokgang Sports Team, marathoner Kim Kum Ok, weight-lifter Kim Un Guk, and table-tennis player Kim Hyok Bong of the April 25 Sports Team, Sin Jong Hwa, player of the National Taekwon-do Sports Team, Han Phil Hwa, official of the Federation of Sports Technique, Pak Yong Ho, chairman of the South Hwanghae Provincial Physical Culture and Sports Guidance Commission, Jon Kil Su, minister of Railways, Tong Jong Ho, minister of Construction and Building-Materials Industry, Pak Kun Sin, principal of the Juvenile Sports School in Phyongchon District, and Ri Jong Ho, director of the Kumkop Trading Company.
They called for bringing about a radical turn in the sports work and glorifying this significant year marking the 70th anniversaries of Korea’s liberation and the founding of the WPK with shining successes in sports, true to the historic letter Kim Jong Un sent to the participants in the conference. -0-