Advertisement
South Korea
This Week in AsiaPeople

South Korea’s Olympic winners: the fury and the fall from grace for top speed skaters

  • South Korea has been the world’s top medal-winner in short-track speedskating since the event made its official debut at the 1992 Olympic Games
  • Cliques, distrust and intense rivalry have been rife among the unstoppable team of talented athletes

Reading Time:5 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
3
South Korean short-track speed skater Shim Suk-hee (left) and teammates Choi Min-jeong, Kim Ye-jin, Kim A-lang and Lee Yu-bin pose during the medal ceremony at the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. Photo: AFP
David D. Lee
South Korea may be geographically small compared to its neighbours China and Japan, with a significantly shorter history of competitive sports than, say, Europe or North America, but it’s a powerhouse in certain Olympic events.
Advertisement

The country is known for being unstoppable in archery, a force to be reckoned with in fencing and the originator of the internationally popular martial art taekwondo. Then there’s short-track speedskating, for which South Korea has been the top medal-winner since the event made its official debut at the 1992 games in Albertville, France. It missed out just once in 2002, coming second to its long-time rival China.

Short-track speedskating is a sport in which athletes skate around an oval ice track, measuring 111.12 metres (364.54ft), completing between 4.5 to 45 laps, depending on the events, which range from the 500m to the 5,000m team relay.

South Korea’s national athletics association has focused on the sport since the 1980s as its main medal-gathering event during the Winter Olympics. It has developed one of the world’s toughest training regimes that starts when athletes are in junior school.

This year in Beijing, South Korea came out on top again, winning five medals in the sport. Yet European countries are rapidly gaining momentum. China, as expected, finished second with four medals, tying with the Netherlands. Italy also won four medals but had one less gold medal, while Hungary gained a higher ranking than at previous Olympics, coming sixth with three medals.

At one time South Korean skaters were known for taking all three positions on the podium in events such as the World Short Track Speed Skating Championships. Such dominance is rare now.

South Korean short-track speed skater Shim Suk-hee. Photo: Agence France-Presse
South Korean short-track speed skater Shim Suk-hee. Photo: Agence France-Presse

As the short-track team touched down at Incheon International Airport last Thursday to a hero’s welcome from fans and the media, there were those who pondered what more could’ve been accomplished if it hadn’t been for the numerous conflicts and controversies that have beset the teams and the Korea Skating Union (KSU) since the early 2000s.

Advertisement