Why were the South Korean skaters so good
One of the first explanations I have found was that " Koreans, have thicker legs than our Asian neighbors, a trait that comes with athletic benefits and drawbacks. Big legs are good for short bursts, but the added muscle weight leads to stamina issues." For short track speed skating this may be an attractive characteristic of the Koreans.
A second explanantion is economic : . “In the ’80s and ’90s, the national athletic association was looking for Olympic sports that Koreans could do well in,” the anonymous writer behind the influential blog “Ask a Korean!” told. “They decided to focus on short track because it was a relatively new event.” Skating programs opened up at every rink; high schools and universities started sponsoring teams. A national infrastructure was built. Korea, in effect, cornered a new medals market."
Korean coaches who showed up in the States in the ’90s and later brought with them an idea of competition forged through decades of rapid economic development after a war that destroyed the country and ripped families apart. “That period in history made Koreans an overzealously proud people, one suggests. “That competitiveness comes from the idea of han — a deep-rooted desire to be a contender because of missed opportunities and being driven to succeed because you suffered so much.”
A second explanantion is economic : . “In the ’80s and ’90s, the national athletic association was looking for Olympic sports that Koreans could do well in,” the anonymous writer behind the influential blog “Ask a Korean!” told. “They decided to focus on short track because it was a relatively new event.” Skating programs opened up at every rink; high schools and universities started sponsoring teams. A national infrastructure was built. Korea, in effect, cornered a new medals market."
Korean coaches who showed up in the States in the ’90s and later brought with them an idea of competition forged through decades of rapid economic development after a war that destroyed the country and ripped families apart. “That period in history made Koreans an overzealously proud people, one suggests. “That competitiveness comes from the idea of han — a deep-rooted desire to be a contender because of missed opportunities and being driven to succeed because you suffered so much.”
Simon Cho, a retired Korean skater who competed in the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver and now lives in USA, has said “What it really comes down to is early discipline — Korean skaters are technically trained from a very early age.” This was a life Cho knew well.. His father saw the growing Korean success in short track and put his son on skates when he was 3.As Cho progressed, he was coached by a series of Korean coaches accustomed to a ruthless national athletic program that destroyed a vast pool of young skaters through a steady diet of corporal punishment and repetition that set the hips deeper into crouches, the shoulders leaning at the correct angle, the thighs pumping with precision. Cho was beaten with hockey sticks and forced to run endless laps by his Korean coaches, and when he was ultimately suspended from the sport for tampering with a Canadian competitor’s blade, he said his Korean coach had put him up to it.
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Simon Cho now coaches in Maryland; many of his skaters are the kids of second-generation Korean-Americans who were brought up in the States. Some have been punished in the old ways by previous coaches, but others are only vaguely aware of what Cho and his generation of skaters experienced. Parents “would be horrified if I coached their kids the way I was coached,” Cho says. “That’s gotta be progress, right?”
It is hard to say what was the real reason for the superiority of the Korean skaters. Comparing the situation in short track in Korea with the long track situation in The Netherlands a common factor for the success is certainly the availability of training facillities all over the countriies and the presence of trainers who know how one can create a good skaters. It might be that the training procedures were rather different in the two countries but in both countries these two factors will have played an important role.
It is hard to say what was the real reason for the superiority of the Korean skaters. Comparing the situation in short track in Korea with the long track situation in The Netherlands a common factor for the success is certainly the availability of training facillities all over the countriies and the presence of trainers who know how one can create a good skaters. It might be that the training procedures were rather different in the two countries but in both countries these two factors will have played an important role.