Korean skeleton athlete Yun Sung-bin (Korea.net DB)
By Yoon Sojung
In all Olympic Games, many star athletes are born and then are sometimes gone. An unknown athlete can have a meteoric rise on the sports scene while at the same time well-known stars can vanish.
At the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, there will be many star athletes who are participating. The Games will also have some dark horse athletes and some winter sports rookies.
Among them, the most successful female ski racer in history, Lindsey Vonn of the U.S., is one of the top athletes who’s expected to shine at the PyeongChang Winter Olympics. Actively serving as an honorary ambassador for the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, Vonn expressed her will to resign by saying that PyeongChang will be her last Olympics.
In interviews with CNN and other media outlets last year, Vonn said that she would go for the gold in Pyeongchang in the memory of her grandfather. Her grandfather, who was stationed in South Korea during the Korean War, passed away in November last year.
Lindsey Von won the 2017 the FIS Ski World Cup in Val d’Isère in France on Dec. 17, 2017, securing her 78th World Cup win. She has been ranked No. 1 in the world, making her way to the gold.
For Team Korea, Lee Sang-hwa is one of the most anticipated gold medalists. Lee won the gold in the woman’s 500 m in the past two Winter Olympics in Vancouver and Sochi. If Lee wins gold at the PyeongChang Winter Games as well, she will become first Korea athlete to ever win gold medals in three consecutive Winter Olympics. According to an ISU announcement in December, Lee will participate in the woman’s 500 m and 1,000 m as well.
One of the most anticipated super rookies at the PyeongChang Winter Olympics will be snowboarder Chloe Kim from the U.S. The young American began snowboarding when she was four.
Kim garnered her fifth World Cup win in the woman’s halfpipe final at the FIS Snowboard World Cup Toyota U.S. Grand Prix in Copper Mountain, Colorado, on Dec. 10, 2017. In February 2016, she became the first female snowboarder to be awarded a perfect 100 score after successfully performing ever back-to-back “1080” move in a superpipe competition at the U.S. Grand Prix in Park City, Utah.
Moving on to the sledding events, Yun Sung-bin of Korea is the skeleton super rookie to watch. On Jan. 5, Yun won a gold medal in the men’s skeleton at the BMW IBSF World Cup in Altenberg, Germany, securing his fourth world cup win in the 2017-2018 season.
Without receiving any advantage from the Olympic host venue, Yun has been writing a new history in Korean skeleton, despite the lack of infrastructure to train on sledding disciplines in Korea.
Even if you’re not interested in skeleton, it may be worth to see Yun’s pursuit for gold at the PyeongChang Winter Olympics.
Will the PyeongChang Games allow star athletes to maintain their reputations? Or will it let new faces shine? We will see.
arete@korea.kr
