“I will show it locally I will work hard to impress the sky.”
A round of flipping over
Kim Min-jong (23, Yangpyeong-gun Office), the top heavyweight in Korean judo, pledged to avenge ‘French hero’ Teddy Liner (35) at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
In February of this year, Kim Min-jong lost half of the finals of the Paris Grand Slam men’s over 100kg category, a prelude to the Olympics, due to a shoulder throw to Riner.
Riner is considered the greatest heavyweight judo athlete of all time, having won the World Championships 11 times, the most ever.
Riner, who won two consecutive Olympic titles in London 2012 and Rio de Janeiro 2016, was eliminated in the quarterfinals at the 2020 Tokyo Games and was once considered outdated.
However, he announced a splendid revival by winning his 11th world championship last year, and is determined to win his third personal gold medal at the Paris Olympics held in his home country this year.
This is the mountain that Kim Min-jong, the champion of this year’s World Championships, must overcome to win an Olympic gold medal.
Kim Min-jong, who met at the Jincheon Judo Center in North Chungcheong Province on the 13th, said, “I have 70 to 80 percent confidence (about winning the Olympic gold medal). I will prepare hard to meet that athlete at the Olympics and win.”
Kim Min-jong said, “That player shows weakness to players as short as me, so I’m practicing how to deal with it accordingly. I’m training a lot of techniques to target gaps.”
When the reporter asked for more details, he tactfully said, “I can translate (my interview) into French, so I will show you (the results) locally.“
Regarding concerns about France’s territoriality, he responded, “There may be some such issues, but we are preparing without worrying about it at all and focusing only on the game.”
Although the technical aspects were kept secret, he comfortably disclosed his own know-how to calm his mind.
It seemed like he had established his own mental management method in the process of being eliminated in the round of 16 at the Tokyo Olympics and winning a silver medal at the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games.
Kim Min-jong said, “I learned a lot about how to prepare through defeat. Even at the Olympics, I am trying to focus on the preparation process rather than the result.” He continued, “Because (skill) is only a fraction away from the top level, I practiced and studied a lot about the mental aspect. “he said.
He also looked back on winning this year’s World Championships, saying, “I think I paid a lot of attention to the preparation process and practiced mentally so that I got good results.“
“Wouldn’t the heavens decide the results?” he asked, adding, “The saying ‘you will receive an Olympic medal if you impress the heavens’ is stuck in my mind, so I am working out hard every day to impress the heavens.”
However, he said with a smile, “My father has asked me to call him ‘Mindtoil’ (Minjong is number one again) from now on, so I will do my best.”
He said that efforts to reduce body fat and increase muscle mass are currently in progress, just like when preparing for the Hangzhou Asian Games.
He said, “If you do a lot of physical exercise, your body fat will automatically lower and your muscle mass will increase. I currently weigh about 135 or 136 kg, but I plan to lose 2 or 3 kg before competing.” 섯다