Minjung Kim is a leading South Korean sport shooter who rose to prominence when she won a bronze medal at the 2014 Youth Olympics. She went on to beat world number one Zhang Jingjing in the final of the 2017 ISSF World Cup Final trophy in the 25m Pistol Women event, climbing the podium to secure the first gold medal of her career. In 2019 she bagged another gold medal in Beijing in the Women’s 10m Air Pistol event, scoring 245.0 points in the final to beat Vitalina Batsarashkina from the Russian Federation. She has now won 3 gold, 3 silver, and 5 bronze medals at major international competitions, and began the new decade at number 3 in the ISSF World Rankings.
The South Korean shooting sensation is coached by Son Sang-won and was 17 years old when she travelled to the 2014 Youth Olympics in in Nanjing, China to represent her country. After a startling performance where she left the three-way duel with 175.4, she narrowly missed out to Russia’s Margarita Lomova and Poland’s Agata Nowak to clinch the bronze medal. Kim also won gold in 2014 at the Asian Youth Championships in Kuwait City.
Kim has gone on to make her mark in senior competitions around the globe, including climbing atop the podium at the ISSF World Cup Final after beating Zhang into the gold medal position. Now one of the most formidable shooters in women’s shooting, she is more than likely to add to her already impressive medal collection in the coming years.
