SEOUL - North Korea is reportedly close to securing its first significant global sports event for almost 40 years, in line with leader Kim Jong-Un's plans to turn the reclusive country into a sporting powerhouse. According to Inside the Games, a website specialising in the organisation of international sporting events, Pyongyang hopes to host the world junior judo championships in 2017, and the world weightlifting juniors a year later. The last major global sports event to be held in the North was the world table tennis championship way back in 1979. According to the website, a "senior member of North Korea's sporting set-up" who was attending the senior weightlifting world championships in Texas last week suggested one of the target events was already in the bag.