Ri Song Gum Wins Gold, Breaks Three World Records at Asian Games

By: Women Entrepreneurs Review Team | Wednesday, 23 September 2026

North Korean weightlifter Ri Song Gum won gold in the women’s 49kg category at the Asian Games in Nagoya, Japan, breaking three world records during her winning performance. India’s Mirabai Chanu finished second to claim an Asian Games medal.

Ri opened the competition with a 94kg snatch, surpassing the previous world record of 93kg. The snatch requires athletes to lift the barbell from the floor directly overhead in one continuous movement.

She then set two more world records in the clean and jerk. Ri first lifted 116kg before raising the record to 121kg, completing the two-stage movement from the floor to the shoulders and then overhead.

Her combined total of 215kg was 7kg more than the previous world record. The victory also gave North Korea its first gold medal of the Games and made Ri one of only four weightlifters to win three Asian Games gold medals.

Key Highlights:

• Ri won gold and broke three world records in the women’s 49kg category
• Mirabai won silver to secure her first Asian Games medal
• Ri became the first female weightlifter to win three Asian Games gold medals

She is the fourth weightlifter with three gold medals at Asia Games and the first-ever female athlete with the feat, following Iranian Mohammad Nassiri (1966-74), South Korea's Kim Tae-hyun (1990-98) and Iran's Behdad Salimi (2010-18). No one has won four gold medals in weightlifting.

Indian Mirabai has won his first Asian Games medal, albeit at the third attempt, in the same category. She is a silver-medalist at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.

The 32-year-old has three Commonwealth gold and a silver to her credit and numerous world championships to her name as the most decorated weightlifter from India. She lifted a total of 198kg after snatching 87kg and clean and jerking 111kg to take bronze with Indonesia's Diana Tri Wijayana in the Doubles event with a total of 191kg (88kg and 103kg).

Mirabai's silver also put an end to India's quest for a medal in weightlifting from the last time it competed in the games in 1998 when Karnam Malleswari had won silver. Ri has not taken part at the Olympics games before. In 2021, North Korea's lack of participation in Tokyo was due to Covid and in 2024, the country failed to qualify in weightlifting for Paris.

The next Olympics in Los Angeles will not feature a 49Kg class, as it's been reduced to six men's and six women's divisions. However, when Ri was asked if she would like to weigh in at 53kg, the lowest weight class for the women, she said "Yes". Competition will be tough as her fellow countryman Kang was also very strong in the 53kg division.

Kang had no problems with the second gold, with a lift of 99kg and 124kg to win. Kang won the second gold with a 99kg and 124kg lift, setting three Asian Games records in the process.

Like her, she cried as she raised the North Korea flag on the podium when she was awarded her second gold medal at the Asian Games. Kang was gold medalist at 55kg in Hangzhou 2023.

India's silver medallist in the Tokyo Olympics Mirabai finally got an Asian Games medal in the 49kg class with a haul of 198kg while Indonesia's Wijayana bagged bronze at the third attempt with 191kg.

In July, the 32-year-old Mirabai took gold at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games, calling it an achievement that brought to a close a dream of standing on an Asian Games podium for the first time.

"I feel very good, very happy," Mirabai told AFP. "This is my dream to win an Asian Games medal. I had the belief in myself that I would be able to win."