at the hong kong marathon, she had her first victory over the distance. she represented north korea at the 2008 summer olympics and took twelfth place in the olympic marathon race. the following year she returned to the pyongyang marathon and finished second again, this time to phyo un-suk. she ran at the 2009 world championships in athletics later that year and finished in twentieth place in the world championship marathon race with a time of 2:31:24 (the best performer of the north korean team). she ended her 2009 season by running a half marathon best of 1:11:55 to win at the 2009 east asian games.