He beat his Tajik and Mexican rivals by 4:0 respectively in the preliminaries and Turkish rival by 3:1 in the finals.

This is the second gold medal for the DPRK at the games. The first gold was taken by Pak Jong Ju, a weightlifter, in the men's 62kg category.

Ri, a wrestler of the DPRK's Chobyong Sports Team, had already proved successful at the Asian Junior Wrestling Championships held last year and this year.