South Korean Olympic shooter Kim Ye-ji, whose notoriety exploded during the Paris Olympics, will put her career on pause to spend time with her family. She feels tired by the growing public interest in her.
South Korean sports shooter Kim Ye-ji, one of the stars of the Paris Olympics, will put her career on pause to spend time with her family, her agent told AFP this Sunday. The Olympic 10-meter pistol silver medalist “will temporarily put her sporting career on hold… to spend time with her granddaughter,” her agent Yang Yong-sik said.
As part of this decision, the 32-year-old shooter will not renew her contract with her team, which is due to expire in December, he said. Kim Ye-ji also felt tired by the growing public interest in her, as well as “mean-spirited comments on the Internet and strangers online asking her for money,” the agent revealed.
Ultra-media coverage during the Olympics
“It is not a question of Kim retiring from shooting” in competition, he stressed, but of “taking a little free time and compensating for the time she was not able to spend with her family”. In an interview with AFP in October, the shooter said she hoped to compete until she was 50.
A short video shot in May during a World Cup event in Baku, then his ultra-calm demeanor combined with futuristic shooting glasses and a baseball cap worn backwards during the Paris Games this summer, made Kim Ye-ji a viral phenomenon, in particular thanks to the multiple montages widely shared on social networks.
Her online popularity even earned her praise from billionaire Elon Musk, who suggested on his social network X that she “should star in an action movie.” “No acting required!”, he wrote at the end of July. Kim Ye-ji is soon to make her on-screen debut alongside Indian actress and influencer Anushka Sen in a series called “Crush”, a spokesperson for Seoul-based entertainment company Asia Lab revealed in September .
