Taekwondo legend takes 'desk job'

By Jung Min-ho

Jung Kook-hyun, an executive committee member of the World Taekwondo Federation, poses during an interview with The Korea Times at the Centro Expositor in downtown Puebla, Mexico, Tuesday. / Korea Times

PUEBLA, Mexico ― It seems that a career in coaching is the most popular option for elite athletes such as Olympians and world champions after they retire. But this often leaves people with little or no experience in athletic competitions making important decisions for athletes in sports governing bodies.

This was something that always nagged away at Jung Kook-hyun, perhaps the best taekwondo fighter that Korea has every produced, now beginning his role as a sports administrator after being elected Monday as an executive committee member of the World Taekwondo Federation (WTF).

The 51-year-old Jung is a legendary figure in Korean sports, the winner of four World Taekwondo Championships in the 1980s and credited as an athlete who perfected the spinning kick, the most important skill in the sport.

As a sports administrator, Jung believes his athletic experience will allow him to reach out to athletes better and reflect their opinions in polices.

``I thought I could play a bigger role for the sport other than training young athletes in the field,” Jung said in an interview. “I thought the job of coaching young athletes has limitations (in inspiring meaningful changes).”

Although he wanted the job as a WTF executive committee member, Jung, who is also a professor at the Korea National Sport University, said he wasn’t confident about the result of the vote.

“Even the WTF President Choue said to me that ‘running the election will be a good experience in itself.’ I really did not anticipate the result until my name was finally called at the general assembly,” Jung said.

``I wasn’t active in the international scene but many WTF members remembered me for my days as an athlete. I think my career helped me win the election.’’

As an athlete, Jung showed promise from a young age, wining two national titles before he even graduated high school.

“I used to play volley ball competitively until the first year of middle school. But my coach cut me out because he thought I was too short for the sport,” Jung said.

He won his fourth world championship title in the welterweight class in 1987 and hung up his uniform two years later.

“I did not see the point of continuing my career as an athlete since I was the first one to take the title for the fourth consecutive time. There was nothing more for me to prove as an athlete,” he said. “After working as a coach for about two years, I flew to the United States to study English and married there.”

When he came back to Korea, he could not find a stable job for a few years, but eventually landed a teaching position at the Korea National Sports University in 2002.

Jung said his goal as an executive member is to make contributions to uniting all the WTF members and freeing taekwondo further from Korea’s boundary.

“We need to listen to what the world want for the sport. The era where Koreans dominated taekwondo is over,’’ he said.

Caption: Jung Kook-hyun, an executive committee member of the World Taekwondo Federation, before an interview with The Korea Times at the Centro Expositor in downtown Puebla, Mexico, Tuesday.