By Kim Tong-hyung
Staff Reporter
In a stunning upset, South Korea won a four-man bobsleigh bronze at the America's Cup competition in Salt Lake City, United States, Monday, an out-of-nowhere triumph stealing from the script of ``Cool Runnings.''
The South Korean team, led by 35-year-old pilot Kang Gwang-bae, finished with a combined time of 1:39.23, following Canada with 1:37.22 and the United States, 1:38.43, at the event held in the Park City ski resort. It marked the country's first bobsleigh medal ever in an international tournament.
``We were finally rewarded for the hard work we put in over the past 10 years. This has showed our potential in the four-man competition, which we believe has narrowed the gap with the world's top class athletes compared to the two-man sled,'' said Kang, who doubles as the team's head coach.
The bronze automatically qualifies South Korea to compete in the 2008-2009 International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation World Cup tournaments and next month's World Championships in Germany. South Korea had already qualified for the two-man competitions, after Kang paired with teammate Lee Jin-hee and finished eighth, Sunday.
``We can improve, especially by starting faster. I think we will be better if we can get athletes trained specifically in bobsleighing,'' said Kang, who says qualifying for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver is his biggest goal.
Kang and his teammates ― Lee, Cho In-ho and Kim Jeong-su ― finished fifth in the first day on the track Sunday, and improved just enough for the third-place finish on the second day.
The Koreans surprised their opponents with their abilities and confounded them even more with their equipment. Kang's team, which doesn't have a sled of their own, paid $500 to organizers to borrow a red sled with a ``Salt Lake 2002'' logo on it, which hadn't been used since the 2002 Winter Games.
For the two-man event, Kang and Lee sped through the ice in a sled imprinted with ``USA.''
Kang and Lee were the only athletes among the four-man team who specialize in bobsleighing, with skeleton athletes Cho and Kim freelancing to allow the country to enter the four-man competition.
Kang, Cho and Kim are employed by the Gangwon Province government, which owns the country's only bobsleighing and skeleton team. Kang was provided a two-man sleigh when the team was first created in 2003, but says the sleigh is now too old to use.
``It's ironic that we are borrowing equipment in a competition in which one-hundredth of a second can make a huge difference,'' said Kang.
``We are borrowing sleighs for every contest, which makes it hard to improve, and we are faced with the risk of injury from using old equipment,'' he said.