century Sohn Kee-chung — 1936 Berlin Olympic marathon winner

By Andrei Lankov

The opening ceremony of the Seoul Olympic Games was held on Sept. 17th in 1988. Thousands of people gathered at the Seoul Olympic Stadium, waiting for the arrival of the Olympic torch. After its airborne trip from Athens to Jeju island, the southernmost tip of the Korean Peninsula, it had travelled 4,168 kilometres, zigzagging its way through the country. Some 1,467 Korean torchbearers took part in the marathon. And now it was time for the climactic final.

The torch was carried into the Stadium by a man in his 70s, still sprightly and fit. Few failed to recognize him. It was Son Ki-chǒng, the greatest sporting hero in all Korean history and a person who can be described as a living symbol of Korea’s pride and determination.

His day of fame had come almost half a century earlier, on Aug. 9th, 1936. This was the day of the marathon competition in Berlin where the 11th Olympic Games were held.

1936 was one of the darkest years in the history of the last century. The Western economy had nearly collapsed under the weight of the Great Depression. China was torn by civil war and the ever-increasing Japanese aggression. Russia, where a few millions peasants had just been starved to death, was in the midst of some bloody purges. Korea was on the eve of the most repressive period in its colonial history: the colonial administration was moving from an apartheid-style policy of earlier periods to the strategy of forced assimilation. So the Olympic gold medal, the first Olympic medal to be won by a Korean athlete, attracted much attention in the country, and made the winner into a universally admired celebrity.