By Kang Seung-woo
Staff Reporter
From marathoner Sohn Kee-chung winning the first gold medal at the Berlin Olympics in 1936 to South Korea's titles at the last Summer Olympics in Athens in 2004, the country has produced a total of 56 golds to establish itself as a sports power behind only China in Asia.
However despite that success, no South Korean athlete, with the exception of Greco Roman wrestler Sim Kwon-ho who won golds in Atlanta in 1996 and Sydney in 2000, has been fortunate enough to repeat as an Olympic champion in an individual event.
And only a few South Korean teams have won consecutive Olympic titles. The Korean women's handball squad captured golds at the 1988 Seoul Games and the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, while the women's archery teams have won titles every year since the Seoul event.
Now, three more South Korean athletes ― Ryu Seung-min, Park Sung-hyun and Jung Ji-hyun ― are bidding to achieve rare glory by defending their championships this summer in Beijing.
In Athens in 2004, Ryu, now 25 years old, surprised the world by beating China's Wang Hao, who is now No. 1 in the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF) rankings, to bring South Korea a gold medal in the men's singles for the first time since 1988, when Yoo Nam-kyu won in Seoul.
However, Ryu's way to repeating is expected to be a much tougher road than four years ago.
Host China, which has claimed seven gold medals in the men's singles and doubles since table tennis became an official sport in the Olympics in 1988, will send a proud squad that is a threat to crush Ryu's hopes of duplicating his Athens accomplishment.
Wang has been determined to develop his reverse backhand move, which can seriously upset opponents.
Since his Olympic loss, Wang has beaten Ryu in all 10 of their matches, giving the 24-year-old Chinese a 16-2 record in their career meetings.
Along with Wang, China will dispatch No. 2-ranked Ma Lin and No. 3 Wang Liqin.
Ma, 28, won a men's doubles gold medal in Athens and has topped four World Cups, while Wang Liqin, a 30-year-old veteran, won world championships in 2001, 2005 and 2007 as well as a gold medal in the men's doubles in Sydney.
However, eighth-ranked Ryu has his eyes set on an upset like four years ago.
The South Korean paddler is on the upswing after winning the men's singles title at the Chile Open in April, only the third ITTF pro tour men's singles title of his career, with the other two coming in Cairo and Chicago in 2004.
Now, he's focusing on increasing his forehand accuracy and diversifying his serve course in an effort to make up for his lack of defense, which has been his Achilles heel.
South Korean women have dominated the archery singles events since 1984, but none of them have won a gold medal at two straight Olympics.
Park, a double gold medallist at the Athens Olympic Games, is the first South Korean archer to win the Olympics (2004), World Championships (2001), Asian Games (2006) and Asian Championships (2005).
Unlike the men's competition, which has no overpowering favorite, the 25-year-old Park is considered a top-tier marksman on the women's side.
To make matters better for her, she picked up two gold medals in the women's singles and team events of the pre-Olympics last year.
As it has been in past Olympics, Park's biggest rival in Beijing will be her compatriot. Yun Ok-hee, who won silver at the Doha Asian Games after losing to Park in 2006, topped the second and third stages of the Archery World Cup in April and May, and the 23-year-old defeated Park 119-106 in the semifinal in the third competition.
Park, who held two bronzes in the World Cup, is now in the final test for the Beijing Olympics, participating in the fourth World Cup event this week in Boe, France.
After capturing a gold medal in 60-kilogram Greco-Roman wrestling at the Athens Olympics, Jung moved up to the 66-kilogram class.
However, the 25-year-old wrestler failed to qualify for the Doha Asian Games and returned to his original division.
After his return, he displayed his gold medal-level skills in winning bronze at the World Championships in Baku, Azerbaijan, in September 2007.
Georgia's David Bedinadze and Japan's Makoto Sasamoto will likely be tough opponents to dethrone in the quadrennial World Sports Festival later this summer in Austria.