Tag: Olympics

Congratulations to all the athletes from South Korea on having a very successful Olympic Games:

South Korea won a medal in the very first medal event of the Paris Olympics on July 27.

The rest of the team picked it up from there and didn’t look back.

South Korea finished the medal race in eighth place with 13 gold medals, nine silver medals and 10 bronze medals, far exceeding its own and many pundits’ projections. South Korea tied its Summer Games record for most gold medals, equaling the mark from 2008 and 2012.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

With everything going on in the world, a badminton scandal is currently the top news story in South Korea:

Responding to critical comments by a badminton gold medalist toward her national team, South Korean Olympic chief Lee Kee-heung said Tuesday he had ordered five coaches to submit reports on the situation.

The action by Lee, president of the Korean Sport & Olympic Committee (KSOC), was in reference to criticism that An Se-young, the women’s singles champion at the Paris Olympics, leveled against the national badminton team moments after she won her gold medal Monday.

An, who had suffered a torn knee ligament in October 2023 while playing in the gold medal match of the Asian Games, claimed that her national team staff didn’t take her injury as seriously as they should have. She also said she found it “difficult” to continue on with the national team, though she later clarified she wasn’t about to retire from international play, and she was only demanding some action from the Badminton Korea Association.

With An and the rest of the badminton team heading back home Tuesday evening, Lee said he didn’t have enough time to look deeper into the situation.

Speaking to reporters at South Korea’s training camp in Fontainebleau, south of Paris, Lee said, “I ordered five coaches to submit reports on how An’s injury had been handled in the months between the Asian Games and the Paris Olympics.”

On top of injury management, An accused the national team of building training programs around doubles players instead of singles players like herself, and of sticking to archaic and inefficient regimens.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but this story makes me wonder if anyone would have cared about her complaints if she didn’t win a gold medal?

This just shows how little people in the west know about South Korea to confuse its flag and athletes with North Korea:

The South Korean sports ministry said Saturday it is seeking a meeting with International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach over a gaffe during the opening ceremony for the Paris Olympics in which South Korea was incorrectly introduced as North Korea during the parade of athletes.

In a statement, the ministry said Jang Mi-ran, the second vice minister of sports who attended the ceremony in the French capital Friday, has asked the IOC to arrange a meeting with Bach over the incident, and asked the country’s chef de mission, or the top delegate, Jeong Gang-sun, to demand a quick response from the IOC and the local organizing committee.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

The complaints about this training sound like a whole lot to do about nothing. If these athletes cannot do morning physical fitness training or row a rubber boat they probably should not be Olympic athletes to begin with:

Members of South Korean women’s national handball team perform a team-building exercise with rubber boats during a training at a boot camp for the Marine Corps in Pohang, South Korea, on March 30, 2016. South Korea’s Olympic chief has defended a decision to send hundreds of athletes to a military camp next week as part of preparations for the 2024 Games in Paris, citing a need to instill mental toughness in competitors. (Choe Dong-joon/Newsis via AP)

South Korea’s Olympic chief has defended a decision to send hundreds of athletes to a military camp next week as part of preparations for the 2024 Games in Paris, citing a need to instill mental toughness in competitors.

About 400 athletes, including women, will arrive at a marine boot camp in the southeastern port city of Pohang on Monday for a three-day training aimed at building resilience and teamwork, the Korean Sport and Olympic Committee said.

The program, pushed by the committee’s president, Lee Kee-Heung, has faced criticism from politicians and media who described the training camp as outdated and showing an unhealthy obsession with medals.

Officials at the committee have played down concerns about the potential for injuries, saying the athletes will not be forced into the harsher types of military training. Morning jogs, rubber-boat riding and events aimed at building camaraderie will be on the program. Sports officials are still finalizing details of the camp with the Korea Marine Corps., committee official Yun Kyoung-ho said Thursday.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link.