Kim Ye-ji is a mood. Her fame is new, but her style isn’t.

Olympic Sports

Kim Ye-ji is a mood. Her fame is new, but her style isn’t.

Published: 01 Aug. 2024, 22:48

JIM BULLEY
jim.bulley@joongang.co.kr

Clockwise from top left: Kim Ye-ji shoots during the final of the women's 10-meter air pistol competition at the Paris Olympics on Sunday. Kim poses with her silver medal at the Olympics. Kim poses with an air pistol while a student at Chungbuk Physical Education High School in 2010. [JOINT PRESS CORPS; KOREA SHOOTING FEDERATION]

Kim Ye-ji is a mood.

The 31-year-old Korean sport shooter with the blacked-out glasses and the ice-cold composure is already one of the biggest stars of the 2024 Paris Olympics, and a look back at her career shows that main character energy has always been there.

And if the casual hand in the pocket and nonchalant approach to elite sports wasn’t enough to convince you that Kim is the sporting equivalent of the voice of a generation, her favorite hobby according to the International Shooting Sport Federation just might do it: Sleeping.

Kim Ye-ji waits during the women's 10-meter air pistol gold medal match at Chateauroux in France on Sunday. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]

Where it all began

Despite her obvious celebrity potential, Kim was not that well known in Korea prior to the Paris Olympics. Shooting is a popular sport here, but individual shooters don’t share the same household name potential as athletes in some of the more prominent sports.

Kim grew up in the rural area of Danyang in North Chungcheong province, smack bang in the heart of Korea and well away from the bright lights of Seoul. It was there, while attending Danyang Middle School that she first took up shooting. According to her Paris Olympics profile, she was just curious to see what it was like.

Kim attended Chungbuk Physical Education High School, moving a good 100 kilometers away from her hometown to attend a school specialized in training athletes. She went on to study at Korea National Sport University in Seoul, a prestigious university that produced some of Korea’s top Olympians.

While at high school, Kim took bronze at the 2010 Munich Junior World Championships in the 10-meter air pistol. Photos from that time show a much younger Kim with an identical pose to that she took to Paris 14 years later — laid back, hand in the pocket, eyes on the prize and a complete lack of emotion on her face.

Kim Ye-ji in action in 2010 while a student at Chungbuk Physical Education High School [KOREA SHOOTING FEDERATION]

Becoming the main character

Although Kim has remained a professional sport shooter throughout her career, it wasn’t until this year that she started to see more serious success.

Prior to Paris, Kim picked up three medals on the World Cup circuit — gold and silver in Baku, Azerbaijan, and bronze in Madrid.

Kim Ye-ji reacts while training in Chateauroux, France on July 26. [YONHAP]

In Baku, Kim won the women’s 25-meter air pistol, nonchalantly setting a new world record along the way. She added silver in the 10-meter, and a 25-meter bronze in Madrid.

Videos of that Baku competition, where Kim did not even blink as she set the world record, went viral this week, alongside clips of her performance in Paris.

That success set her up for Paris, where she took silver in the 10-meter competition behind 19-year-old teammate Oh Ye-jin.

Speaking after that event, Kim described Oh as “like a younger sister” to her — the pair are roommates as well as teammates — saying; “of course I would have liked to win gold, but I’m happy for her.”

The 25-meter air pistol, which Kim holds the world record in, will start on Friday.

Kim Ye-ji reacts after winning the silver medal in the women's 10-meter air pistol gold medal match at Chateauroux in France on Sunday. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]

The stance

Kim is the latest in a long line of pistol sport shooters to go viral for their seemingly casual pose and generally laid-back attitude, a reputation that lends itself as much to the sport as it does the athlete.

The hand in the pocket is common throughout sport pistol shooting — Turkey’s Yusuf Dikec has also gone viral for the same thing this year — and is as much about balance as it is about looking cool. The stance helps shooters focus on their dominant hand by taking the other out of action.

Kim’s signature glasses are also an example of the shooting glasses typical to the sport, although hers are tinted far darker than most of the other athletes seem to prefer.

But the rest is pure Kim. The tracksuit zipped up to the neck, the no-nonsense bob, the baseball cap, and, because it can’t all be sunglasses and guns, the elephant plushy key chain hanging at her belt.

An elephant doll hangs from Kim Ye-ji's waist during the women's 10-meter air pistol gold medal match at Chateauroux in France on Sunday. [JOINT PRESS CORPS]

According to some reports, that elephant, which is attached to a small towel, is to remind Kim of her young daughter. The Korea JoongAng Daily has not been able to confirm as of press time if that is the case, although the Olympics website does say she has a daughter (and updates her hobby from sleeping to movies, which would also make sense).

Kim returns to the shooting range on Friday with a very different fanbase behind her. On Sunday she was an emerging star from Korea. Now she’s one of the biggest names of the 2024 Games with millions of fans watching all over the world.

BY JIM BULLEY [jim.bulley@joongang.co.kr]