‘Sci-fi assassin’: S. Korean Olympic sharpshooter wins internet

Wearing her black South Korea uniform zipped up to the neck, a baseball hat, and wire-rimmed shooting glasses, 31-year-old Kim Ye-ji was almost preternaturally calm in videos showing her and her teammate locking up the two top shooting scores in Paris Sunday.

After her win, a 27-second clip showing Kim, with the same ultra-calm manner, taking aim, shooting her weapon, and checking her record-breaking score, went viral.

The video, which appears to have been first shared in a Reddit thread, actually shows Kim at the Baku World Cup in May, not Paris.

But even as social media platform X flagged some posts for sharing the footage out of context, the video continued to spread online, alongside images of Kim from Paris.

Kim was quickly declared “the coldest style star of this year’s Games” by style magazine GQ.

“The first-time Olympian took to the range at the Chateauroux Shooting Center looking like an ultra-contemporary, sportswear-wearing sci-fi assassin,” GQ said.

One post of the video, which declared Kim to have “the most main character energy” racked up more than 28 million views in a day.

Elon Musk, who owns X, called for Kim to be cast in an action movie.

“No acting required!” Musk wrote, in comments which appeared to further amplify the video.

The footage has spawned fan art of Kim, multiple edits setting the clip to K-pop music, and endless memes, including some discussing her unique “aura”.

‘Going to win gold’

Kim, who is ranked first in the women’s 10-metre air pistol and fourth in the 25-metre pistol, will be shooting again later this week in Paris.

For Kim, who lists her hobbies as “sleeping” on the International Shooting Sport Federation, the 25-metre event is actually her speciality — and fans will get to watch her in preliminaries on Friday and the finals the following day.

“I am confident all the time… I, Kim Ye-ji, am going to win gold no matter what,” she told reporters.

Kim told South Korean media that she was looking forward to speaking to her five-year-old daughter after all her events were over.

When asked what she would want to tell her, Kim said gleefully of her new online notoriety: “I think I have become a bit famous now.”

South Korea dominates archery at the Olympics, with its women archers having won every gold since the sport was introduced to the games in 1988.

It also performs strongly in taekwondo — its native martial art — and has done reasonably well in shooting in the past, securing nine gold medals as of Wednesday since 1992, four of which were won by women shooters.

South Korean men who win medals at the Olympics are granted an exemption from military service, which is not mandatory for women.