North Korea has officially registered to participate in the 52nd ISSF World Championships in all shooting events in Changwon, South Korea.
The team landed at the Busan airport today, on the Air China flight CA129 from Beijing, right in time for the championship’s opening ceremony to be held tomorrow, 1st of September. The North Korean delegation was greeted by a crowd of sport fans and South Korean people at the airport, before being escorted on their way to Changwon.
Led by 2016 Olympic bronze medalist Kim Song Guk, 12 athletes from the North will participate in 14 events, in all four ISSF disciplines (rifle, pistol, shotgun, running target) from August 31 to September 15.
North Korea’s shooting team had already participated in this year’s ISSF World Cup in Munich (GER), and they are not new to the ISSF World Championships. Their athletes participated in nine ISSF World Championships between 1958 and 2016, winning 26 medals. But this is certainly a special occasion: it’s the first time that North Korea competes in an ISSF shooting event held in the South.
"With North Korea's participation, our world championships will send a message of peace," said Mr. Huh Sung-moo, mayor of Changwon and the co-president of the Championship’s organizing committee.
ISSF Secretary General Franz Schreiber said:
“We are pleased that a delegation from North Korea will participate in the 52nd ISSF World Championship in Changwon.”
“North Korea participated in several ISSF events in these years, and were really looking forward to their participation in this important championship in Changwon.”
“We hope that this will prove once again that sport can be an instrument of peace and international stability, and hopefully ease regional relationships.”
The 52nd ISSF World Championship in all shooting events, held in Changwon, South Korea, from the 31st of August through the 15th of September 2018, is an Olympic qualifier event, the first competition to assign Tokyo 2020 quota places for shooting. 60 Olympic quota places will be awarded here in the 15 Olympic shooting events in the next days, out of the 360 total Olympic quotas reserved to the sport.
A total of 1806 athletes from 90 nations are set to participate in the competition, piling up 3457 starts in 59 Olympic and non-Olympic events.
The official Opening Ceremony will take place on the 1st of September, while the first medals will be assigned from the 2nd of September.
Footage of the Olympic events’ finals will be distributed worldwide via EBU and broadcasted live on the ISSF website, on the Federation’s Livestream channel and on its official Facebook page.
Live results, news and updates will be available on www.issf-sports.org and on all ISSF social media platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Weibo and Youku.
