Kim Yeji: Ice‑cold focus turns heads at Paris Olympics

The sports shooter won an Olympic silver in her discipline. However, her viral popularity on social media is due to her "aura."

South Korean sharpshooter Yeji Kim became a star of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, not just for her sports skills. Kim won silver in the 10-yard air pistol shooting event, placing right behind her compatriot Ye-jin Oh, who won gold. However, while Kim's Olympic performance gained her many new fans, a video clip recorded during competitions in May sparked a wave of admiration and excitement on social media.

A recording from another competition went viral, riding the wave of interest in Kim. The athlete is a two-time World Championship medalist, which took place in May 2024 in Baku, Azerbaijan. In footage from this event, the Korean looks like a character from an action movie or a video game. In futuristic glasses, she casually aims and reloads the pistol without changing her facial expression, even though, at that very moment, she broke the world record in her discipline.

Social media went crazy over the "ice-cold" shooter. A viral post on X asked: "How is she for real?". Meanwhile, on TikTok, the most popular comment on the video from the Azerbaijan competition was: "Face card and pose are lethal". "Face card" is a term used on social media, meaning someone is so beautiful or attractive that they can get whatever they want, like an unlimited credit card.

Kim's character is even more intriguing because her "unflappable" image has touching highlights. One user on X wrote, "All that aura, while she was simultaneously holding her cute, tiny elephant doll." Aura is the latest term for being impressive, strong, and charismatic. The little elephant Kim holds in her left hand while shooting belongs to her daughter.

In an interview with the Associated Press after winning the silver medal at the Paris Olympics, Yeji Kim expressed her joy over her younger teammate's success, who won gold. She confessed, "She is like my youngest sister, and I always want to take care of her and be there for her. So when she won the gold medal, I was very happy." Oh is 12 years younger than Kim, who is 31.

Yeji Kim will compete in another Olympic event on August 2nd. This time, she will shoot an air pistol at a target 25 metres away. Surely, many new fans who had never been interested in sport shooting before will be watching her performance.