In Korean figure skating and swimming, the era of relying on unsung heroes such as figure skating queen Kim Yu-na and marine boy Park Tae-hwan seems to be waning. As several athletes who can succeed Kim Yu-na and Park Tae-hwan appeared in Korea, the overall performance improved, and now they are aiming for a prize in the team event in major competitions.
Kim Yuna Kids, who started figure skating after watching her, are embroidering her world stage. The Korean figure skating team, led by Lee Hae-in (18, Sehwa Girls’ High School) and Cha Jun-hwan (22, Korea University), won a silver medal at the International Skating Union (ISU) World Team Trophy, which was their first national competition.
This event is a stage that even figure skating queen Yuna Kim could not step on. Kim Yu-na was a unique existence before figure skating became popular in Korea, so there was a lack of world-class athletes in other events such as men’s singles, pairs, and ice dance. Because of this, South Korea did not qualify for Yuna Kim’s Team Trophy event during her active career.
Her year was different, as she became her ninth year after Yuna Kim retired from her career. Cha Jun-hwan and Lee Hae-in, who nurtured her dream by watching her Kim Yu-na, took a silver medal at the world championships and leaped to the top of the world. Kim Ye-rim in the women’s team and Lee Si-hyeong in the men’s team also played a part in the national team.
In addition, as foreign players joined in pair and ice dance, the competitiveness of the team competition improved. National ice dance representative Lim Hae-na has dual citizenship of Canada and Korea, and her partner, Quan-ye, is Chinese-Canadian. Jo Hye-jin, who competes in the pairs event, is also a Canadian-born dual citizen, and her partner Stephen Adcock is Canadian.
The Korean national team, which was the youngest among the participating countries with an average age of 20, united under the goal of ‘let’s enjoy skating’. They cheered the hardest and drew attention by holding a splendid ceremony in the kiss and cry zone.
Now, my next goal is an Olympic team medal. If Quan Ye and Adcock acquire Korean citizenship, they will be able to compete in the team event (team event) at the 2026 Milan-Cortina d’Ampezzo Winter Olympics to be held three years later. Attention is focusing on whether Korean figure skaters will be able to win medals in the Olympic team event beyond the team trophy.
In swimming, with the emergence of an outstanding star named Hwang Seon-woo, who succeeded Park Tae-hwan, the entire Korean swimming world is not obsessed with Hwang Seon-woo.
In the men’s 100m freestyle semifinal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Hwang Seon-woo succeeded in advancing to the Olympic final for the first time in 56 years as an Asian athlete. He won a silver medal in the 200m freestyle (1:44:47) at last year’s World Championships in Budapest and a gold medal in the 200m freestyle (1:39:72) at the Short Course World Championships in Melbourne, Australia.
Korea only focused on Park Tae-hwan’s performance in the 400m and 1500m freestyle, but Hwang Sun-woo’s case is different. Hwang Seon-woo puts considerable effort into relays with his national team mates.
The Hangzhou Asian Games Special Strategy Development Team, which is part of the management team consisting of Hwang Seon-woo, Lee Ho-jun (Daegu Metropolitan City Hall), Kim Woo-min (Gangwon Provincial Office), and Yang Jae-hoon (Gangwon Provincial Office), has been in Australia for about a month since February with the goal of winning the first gold medal in the Asian Games 800m relay. I did field training in
They are aiming for the gold medal in the 800m relay for the first time in Korean swimming at the Asian Games in Hangzhou in September. The best Korean swimmer ever achieved in the men’s team event at the Asian Games was the silver medal in the relay 800m relay jointly by Ji Sang-jun, Woo-chul, Woo Won-ki and Bang Seung-hoon at the 1994 Hiroshima Games in Japan. 카지노
Unexpected progress is also expected in the 400m medley relay. The Gangwon Provincial Office team, consisting of Hwang Seon-woo, Kim Woo-min, Choi Dong-yeol and Yang Jae-hun, set a new Korean record in the men’s medley relay 400m at the Jeju Halla Cup National Swimming Championships on the 18th. The 400m medley relay is a team event in which four people swim 100m each in the order of backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly, and freestyle.
There is a possibility that Kim Woo-min, who is in sync with Hwang Seon-woo, will emerge as a surprise star. Kim Woo-min, who is growing rapidly, set a new record by passing the World Championship A standard record in all four events in the KB Finance Korea Swimming Championship last month, which was a national team selection event.
Kim Woo-min won the World Championships in Fukuoka in July and the Asian Games in Hangzhou in September by surpassing the A standard records of the International Swimming Federation in three individual events, 400m, 800m, and 1500m freestyle. Kim Woo-min passed the A-standard record in the final of the 200m freestyle, but he cannot participate in the 200m freestyle due to the regulations limiting the number of players per country to two in each event.
As such, Korean figure skating and swimming have ended their heroic era and are facing a new phase in which multiple excellent athletes grow together. There are also expectations that the player base will be able to become thicker through a virtuous cycle that leads to experience accumulation and base expansion.