Kim Il-guk, a North Korean sportsman and chairman of the Chosun Olympics Committee, has long been the face of North Korean sports. Kim Il-kuk Athletic Award is still listed as the 'Chairman of the Chosun Olympic Committee' on the IOC website, but since July last year, the question of his recent situation has been amplified.
According to North Korea's Chosun Central News Agency, Kim Il-guk participated in an event to sign a sports agreement on promoting sports and cultural exchanges with the Congo Sports Minister, who visited Pyongyang on July 11, 2019. The next day, we met with the chairman of the Supreme People's Assembly, Choi Ryong-hae, and met with the delegation of the Democratic Republic of Congo at Pyongyang Mansudae.

An official from the Korea Sports Council said, “I understand that I am forced to work near Pyongyang. The exact reason why he is forced to work is unknown to North Korean sports officials. According to Kim Il-guk, Lee Sun-seon, the president of the International Taekwondo Federation (ITF), is mentioned as a successor to North Korea.

The father of Kim Il-kook Athletic Award is known as former North Korean deputy prime minister Kim Dal-hyun and his mother (Kang Kwan-suk) is the daughter of Kim Il-sung's cousin. Former deputy prime minister Kim Dal-hyun was favored by Kim Il-sung as the “best economic worker,” but he was purged only after Kim Il-sung's death.
Kim Il-kook's athletics award, which was run at a relatively early age, led the North Korean athletes in February 2018 to participate in the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. In February 2019, we attended an inter-Korean sports conference at the IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, and agreed to form a single team for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

However, five months later, the Kim Il-kook Athletic Award, which overseeed North Korean sports, was virtually purged, raising concerns about whether North Korea would compete in the Tokyo Olympics. North Korea's men's football took part in the Asian final qualifiers in Thailand last month, but they couldn't win a ticket.

There is a good chance that they will compete in the Wrestling Olympics Asian Quarter, which will be held later this month. This is because they have a significant competitive edge in women's wrestling. Freestyle 53kg Park Young-mi (1st in the world ranking), freestyle 57kg, Jeong In-sun (10th), and freestyle 62kg-class Lim Jong-sim (8th) are considered to be close to Olympic medals. Park Young-mi, in particular, won the World Championship in September last year and emerged as a gold medal candidate for the Tokyo Olympics.

Stronger than wrestling is weight lifting. North Korea ranked 34th overall in the 2016 Rio Olympics with two gold, three silver and two bronze medals. Among them, he was able to win 1 gold and 3 silver medals in weightlifting. US data analyst Gracenote predicted that North Korea would be ranked 27th overall with 10 medals, including three gold medals, three silver medals and four bronze medals.

North Korea is expected to decide whether or not to participate in June, about a month before the opening of the Tokyo Olympics, and it is certain that Kim Jong-un, the leader of the system, will comprehensively review the various situations such as North-North relations and inter-Korean relations and finally make a decision on Tokyo.

The Korea Sports Council put more weight on the possibility of participating given the current attitude of North Korea. This is because it is more profitable to participate than not to participate in situations where you can win two or three gold medals in weightlifting and wrestling. When the North Korean athletes confirm their participation in the Tokyo Olympics, they plan to jointly enter the opening ceremony and form a judo team.