Disabled Kim Becomes Another Marine Boy
By Bae Ji-sook
Staff Reporter
Twelve year-old Kim Se-jin who lacks two ``ordinary legs'' won three gold and four silver medals at the Disability Sports Events National Junior Championships in Sheffield, Britain, Sunday.
The champion won the gold for men's 150-meter free style, 50-meter butterfly and 200 meter medley. He also bagged four silvers for the 50-meter backstroke, breaststroke, free style and 25-meter butterfly.
``We still have long way to go,'' Yang Jeong-suk, his mother, said.
Often dubbed as ``new Adam King'' after the Korean ethnic American adoptee who also had two titanium artificial legs and pitched at the opening of the Korean baseball season in 2001, Kim is inspiring hundreds and thousands of people with and without disabilities.
Kim was born with abnormal legs and abandoned by his biological parents at birth. When he was 18 months old, Yang, who volunteered at his orphanage, adopted him.
Yang was willing to be tough on her child. She made him walk with his knees, gave him titanium artificial legs weighing about one fifth of his weight and taught him how to live on his own. With Yang's support, Kim started to run in marathons, including the Terry Fox run. He completed a five kilometer-route at the age of eight and climbed Loveland path in the Rocky Mountains at age nine.
Kim started swimming three years ago as part of a strength building process. Even Yang didn't know what would become of him but day by day his skills improved. Starting from being placed sixth at the Asia-Pacific Disability Swimming Championship in 2006, he placed second in the same event a year later.
Purme Foundation, his supporter, said it's time people thought about something underneath Kim's victory. ``Kim's artificial legs require 40 million won for repair every year. It's hard for him to get a sponsor, the training facilities and treatment he needs,'' foundation spokesman Chung Tae-young said.
Yang also admitted that she is still living a very unstable life. To support her son, she drove taxis, washed cars and ran travel agencies and still now, she lives on a very tight budget. What makes her even more timid is the social prejudice toward a swimmer without ``proper legs.''
``I fear someone might suddenly ask us to leave wherever we are because they do not want such a boy making trouble,'' she said. ``Even when I am talking I feel like someone is judging us,'' she added.