North Korea lifters prove big hit in South Korea

The exuberant antics of North Korea's record-breaking weightlifters are causing a stir at the Asian Games as they are cheered on by pro-unification supporters with the police turning up en masse.
With rock music blaring and the crowd on its feet and dancing, North Korea's often stern athletes are the unlikely stars as they whip up a concert atmosphere, co-incidentally on the site of the huge three-day annual Pentaport rock festival in Incheon, South Korea.
In front of the media, it's a different story as the weightlifters carefully stick to the party line and confine themselves to thanking the communist state's supreme leader, Kim Jong-Un.

With a large North Korean delegation making a rare trip south for the Games, political sensitivities are raw between two ideologically opposed countries which remain technically at war.
The weightlifting, a North Korean forte, has attracted a vocal group of red-clad cheerleaders yelling support for their "brothers" -- as well as police wary of skirmishes with rival activists.
It has made for a heady mix at Incheon's Moonlight Festival Garden arena, and an atmosphere the visiting North Korean lifters have been happy to exploit.
First on Saturday it was Om Yun-Chol, 5ft 0in (1.50m) and weighing just under 56kg, who got the party started by breaking his own world record, leaping high to punch the air in celebration and milking the applause.

Then on Sunday another flamboyant pocket-rocket, London Olympic gold medallist Kim Un-Guk, smashed world records three times in claiming gold in the men's 62kg.