Career
In 2009, he successfully performed an extremely difficult new vault, a Tsukahara (1/4 entry in the first flight) on the vaulting table, followed by a full twisting double backwards salto in tuck position. The new vault is named after Ri. The vault is valued a 7.2 A-score, the second highest difficulty value in the world, with Hak Seon Yang"s vault being the most difficult with a start value of 7.4.
Ri competed in the 2009 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships and qualified first for the vault final.
He finished 7th in the final after a fall on his first vault and going out of bounds on his second vault, with an average score of 15.650.