Sliding sports emerging as next Olympic gold mine for Korea

Race: Control the sled that runs at 30 kilometers per hour with the slightest movement of body.

Athletes show potential in skeleton, bobsleigh

Yun Sung-bin, Korean skeleton racer, won a silver medal at the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation (IBSF) World Championships last week. Finishing four runs in 3 minutes 29.97 seconds, Yun became the first Asian to win a medal at the world championship.

By Nam Hyun-woo, Park Jin-hai

Korea’s triumphs in winter sports have largely been confined to ice sports, but athletes in sliding sports are hoping to make history the upcoming 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang.

Since the 1992 Winter Games in Albertville, France, Korea has ranked between sixth and 13th place in the Olympic medal standings for a country that barely has winter sports infrastructure. It has been proud of its victories in short- and long-track speed skating and figure skating, but now looks forward to excelling in other winter sports.

The Korean sports community’s efforts toward this goal came to bear fruit earlier this year, when the country’s athletes clinched gold medals for sliding sports at the World Cup .

Yun Sung-bin made history in skeleton last week, when he won Korea’s first-ever silver medal at the world championships. Yun finished four runs in 3 minutes and 29.97 seconds at the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation (IBSF) World Championships in Igls, Austria, becoming the first Asian to win a medal at the international sports event.

Get set: Picture the track course

Accelerate: Reach the start line within 30 seconds

Jump on sled: Ride on the sled before the start line

The 22-year-old’s victory seems even more dramatic when one learns that he won only three years and seven months after he first picked up the sport in his senior year in high school. After finishing 16th at the 2014 Sochi Games, he rose to No. 2 on the standings as of Friday.

In January, bobsleigh racers Won Yun-jong, as the pilot, and Seo Young-woo, as the brakeman, won Korea’s first World Cup gold medal in Whistler, Canada, after finishing two runs in 1:43.41. After the win, Won rose to No. 1 on the two-man bobsleigh standings and solidified his status with top 10 finishes afterwards. The duo accomplished the feat only six years after they first took up the sport.

Kang Kwang-bae: Sliding sports pioneer in Korea

Korean sliding sports athletes like Yun and Won are excelling only now because of the short history of the sports in the country.

The majority of sports officials here consider Professor Kang Kwang-bae of Korea National Sports University as the pioneer of sliding sports in the country.

Kang, a former ski athlete himself participated in the luge in 1995, when the International Luge Federation (FIL) introduced the sport at a Muju resort in North Jeolla Province.

Kang, whose dream of becoming an Olympian seemed to have ended after a knee injury, was delighted to hear that the federation was looking for a national athlete and found the sport interesting.

"I did not know what luge was," Kang said during an interview with The Korea Times. "I heard it involved riding a sleigh, so I thought it would be a fit for me because it would not put pressure on my knee."”

After experiencing the Olympics in Nagano, in 1998, Kang moved to Austria and was introduced to skeleton. Since the Korean luge and bobsleigh federation, which also sanctioned skeleton in the country at the time, was not yet a member of the international federation, he raced as an Austrian club athlete. The following year, Korea joined the FIBT, (the precedent of the IBSF), but did not provide support for Kang at all.

"I had to cover all the training cost by myself. I even had to buy the 'taegeukgi' (Korean national flag) for my uniform," Kang said.

He competed in skeleton at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics without any due support for a national athlete. He recalled that he started receiving the "proper" support only after 2004. "That was the most difficult time, but if there were no such hardships, Korea may still have no foundation for sliding sports," he said. He competed in skeleton at the 2006 Torino Games and in bobsleigh at the 2010 Vancouver Games, becoming the only Korean to compete in three sliding sports at the Olympics.

Bobsleighing is made up of teams of two or four teammates, who make timed runs down narrow, iced tracks. The timed runs are combined to the final score.

Korean sliding sports grow with PyeongChang dream

Kang said the environment and support for sliding sports in Korea have turned around "180 degrees" compared to those during his competitive days.

Unlike several years ago, sliding sports athletes today have sufficient sponsors who are ready to provide the required resources, such as a systematic training system and a training venue.

After his repeated calls starting in 2003, the start training center finally opened in 2010.

"The start training center built in Alpensia, Gangwon Province has contributed greatly to improving the athletes’ skills, because the start makes almost 90 percent of the athletes’ performance. Previously, they had to work on weights," he said.

Kang, who recruited Yun in high school and trained him into a global sports star, said Yun has always had guts and great reflexes.

"To become a great athlete, one should learn to clear his minds. When Yun is on a sled, he focuses entirely on the race, with simplicity and guts. I knew he had all the potentials to become a big-name athlete,”” Kang said.

He said he expects the upcoming PyeongChang Olympics to be a turning point for sliding sports in Korea.

"Unlike in other countries, where athletes are groomed from when they are very young, Korea has a unique top-down system, where people pay attention to a lesspopular sport only after an athlete wins a medal at the Olympic games, inspires young aspiring athletes to join the field," he said.