South Korean Olympian Kim Yeji shoots her way to stardom

(CNN) — One might picture a customized velvet-lined box as a safe and worthy place to store a first Olympic medal, but not Kim Ye-ji. The impossibly cool shooter randomly dug up her silver medal from the bottom of her backpack.

“Oh, here’s the medal,” says Kim. “No wonder my bag was heavy!”

The 32-year-old casually displayed the shining accolade to CNN Sport at her shooting range, nestled amongst endless trees in the mountainside of North Jeolla Province, more than 200 kilometers (about 124 miles) south of the capital of Seoul.

Banners on the streets of Imsil County congratulating Kim on Olympic glory are quiet reminders of the viral fame she gained this summer. Far louder are the photo shoots with luxury brands and numerous appearances on Korean TV.

Earlier this year, the internet fell in love with the South Korean for her stone-cold appearance with a pistol at a World Cup event in Baku, Azerbaijan, in May, and then, more prominently, at the Olympics in Paris, praising her “main character energy” and “the most aura I have ever seen in an image.”

But when she puts down her pistol, her sharp expression turns into a more relaxed demeanor, and she habitually raises her right eyebrow as she speaks, revealing a side not known to the masses.

“Nothing has changed much after the Olympics,” she humbly tells CNN Sport.

Born to be a shooter

Kim’s sporting career began when she raised a hand to an elementary school gym teacher’s simple question: “Who wants to do some shooting?”

At the time, shooting was not a mainstream sport in South Korea, and the country had only won a total of seven medals – two gold, four silver and a bronze – across four Olympics by the time Kim got into the sport in 2005.

“I was so young then, and I just thought it would be fun,” she says. “I didn’t think about taking it seriously and becoming a world-class athlete from the beginning, it was just fun.”

Kim might have started shooting without any dreams of grandeur, but she was talented enough to pursue it as a job and a means of income.

“I just stuck with it to earn money at first. If I did it for fun as a student, I shot to earn money at a business team,” she says.

Shooting was still no more than a job for Kim until 2019, when she met her current coach Kwak Min-su at the Imsil County Office team.

“I started working hard after meeting coach Kwak. He’s been a very credible coach, so I wanted to work hard and pay him back,” she says of the coach who irons her Olympic uniform out of love.

Hard work on top of her natural talent only elevated Kim’s career, helping to boost her precision with the pistol. In April this year, she became the only South Korean shooter to qualify in two events for the Paris Olympics – 10-meter air pistol and 25-meter pistol – after finishing second in both events in the Korean national trials.

Then in May, she set the women’s 25-meter pistol world record in Baku, where the video of her next-level concentration and “aura” went viral on X.

Emotions at the Paris Olympics

The huge scale of the Olympic stage might often make athletes nervous, especially for those participating in the Games for the first time. But that was not the case for Kim.

“I didn’t feel much emotion during the 10m event, I was really enjoying myself during the Games,” she says, with her South Korean teammate Oh Ye-jin just two lanes away among the eight athletes competing.

As the shooters simultaneously fired at their target, those with the lowest points walked out until Kim and Oh were the last two challenging for the gold medal. Kim finished with 241.3 points, falling 1.9 points short of Oh, but she remembers it as “a very happy moment.

“There were some regrets, but that’s a regret that comes after every match. It’s not because I didn’t win a gold medal, but because I didn’t do my job properly,” says Kim.

Just a few days after standing on the podium, Kim went through an “emotional drama” at the women’s 25m pistol qualification round, though still managed to remain composed. She scored no points in the 11th round of qualifying after failing to shoot in the alotted three seconds, which hindered her chances of advancing to the finals.

“That mistake wasn’t the end of the Games, so I calmed myself down by thinking about the next round of shots,” says Kim.

Despite refocusing and scoring 10 points 16 times out of the remaining 19 shots, she failed to qualify for the final.

Icon of charisma and style

It was not just Kim’s charisma that caught the attention of viewers of the Games, but also her style – an elephant plushie towel with her name tag attached, a backwards cap and futuristic shooting glasses.

Despite sporting a look that wouldn’t seem out of place in a Blade Runner film during competitions, Kim defines herself as a “simple dresser” who enjoys wearing crop tops and white jeans on off-days and her team uniform for training or event days.

“I dress super plain, simple. But people tell me I look good,” she says.

Despite dressing plainly at times, Kim says the elephant plushie towel that hangs on her hip is a must-have at all competitions, as well as her cap, glasses and shoes for shooting.

“When I shoot, I get gunpowder on my hand, so I wear a towel to wipe the powder,” she says.

While she remains humble about being called a “fashion icon,” Kim has done numerous photo shoots with renowned brands including Louis Vuitton and Givenchy, stealing the hearts of her fans.

“Did you run out of target board? Why do you keep shooting at my heart…” one fan commented on her Instagram post of the Louis Vuitton shoot.

Kim even earned the admiration of Elon Musk, who remarked about a video of her competing in Baku that she “should be cast in an action movie.” An executive producer must have been listening as Kim earned a role as an assassin (of course) in the series “Crush,” a spin-off series of the film “Asia.”

“I’m an athlete, so I never thought about starring in movies, but if I’m labeled as a shooter and if it’s an opportunity for more people to learn about shooting, I think I’d happily participate in it,” Kim says about her cameo role before it was publicly announced.

“Mommy will win the gold medal”

While engaging in photo shoots, interviews and commercials, Kim does not forget the fact that she is a shooter before anything else.

“I’m thankful that people call me a fashion icon. But I’m an athlete, so shooting is part of my life,” she says.

Since Kim took up shooting, South Korea has seen several heroes in the sport, such as Jin Jong-oh, who won four golds and two silvers across five Olympics, and Kim Jang-mi, who won a gold at the 2012 London Olympics.

At the Paris Olympics, South Korea won the most shooting medals at the Games in the country’s history with three golds and three silvers. And as the country gradually improves, Kim hopes to popularize the sport.

To that end, she is already eyeing the LA 2028 Olympics by preparing step by step, starting with the ISSF World Cup final taking place in India later this month.

If self-motivation wasn’t enough, Kim has promised her six-year-old daughter that she would become an Olympic champion in the next edition of the Games. When she won silver in Paris, her daughter exclaimed, “Mommy, you won a silver!” but quickly added that she should win a gold next time.

“Just wait, mommy will win the gold,” Kim promised.

The-CNN-Wire
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