Team Korea wins first Olympic medal in men's four-man bobsleigh
South Korea’s four man bobsleigh team Won Yun-jong (left), Seo Young-woo, Kim Dong-hyun, and Jun Jung-lin celebrating after winning silver at the PyeongChang Sliding Center Sunday. / Yonhap
By Kim Hyun-bin
Team Korea made history in the four-man bobsleigh claiming silver at the Olympic Sliding Center, Sunday.
This is the first medal for South Korea in the sport.
Team Korea’s accumulated time for the four heats stood at 3 minutes 16.32 seconds, tying a German team for silver.
Out of the 29 teams that competed, Germany dominated, taking gold and tying Korea for silver in the race.
The German team led by Francesco Friedrich claimed gold clocking in at 3:15.85, just 0.53 seconds ahead of Team Korea, which tied with the second German team led by Nico Walther for the silver.
In the first two opening heats South Korea finished second at 1:37.84.
The team was 0.29 seconds behind Francesco Friedrich’s German team.
Before the PyeongChang Olympics no one thought Korea’s four-man bobsleigh team had a chance at winning a medal at the Winter Games.
Team Korea was ranked 50th in the world by the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation.
South Korea debuted in bobsleigh at the 2010 Vancouver Games with a surprise finish of 19th. At the 2014 Sochi Olympics, Team Korea sent two teams but did not produce satisfying results, taking 20th and 28th place.
The intense training, their dedication for the sport, as well as benefiting from the home team advantage all contributed their historic medal win at this year’s Winter Games.
The four-man team were able to ride the course at the Olympic Sliding Center in PyeongChang four or six times a day before the start of the Olympics.
The four athletes also had to work on gaining mass and muscle to better compete.
The total weight of the four-man team totaled at 419 kilograms: Won Yun-jong (109 kg), Jun Jung-lin (102 kg), Seo Young-woo (103 kg) and Kim Dong-hyun (104 kg).
The team had to devour all the food put before them, sometimes eating up to 15 meals a day to gain weight.
The athletes confessed even though the team was constantly training and burning hundreds of calories a day, they had a difficult time gaining weight.
“The hardest part was forcing myself to eat,” Won Yun-jong said.
However, the hard work started to pay off and South Korean head coach Lee Yong said last December, after watching the men progress, that the four-man team may surprise the world. And that turned out to be true.