How can we cure the premature aging of Korean marathon runners? As the slump in the Korean marathon continues, the concerns deepen.
The Korean men’s marathon has achieved great success on the international stage. After Sohn Kee-jeong won the Berlin Olympics in 1936, Seo Yun-bok (1947) and Ham Ki-yong (1950) won consecutively the Boston Marathon, the dream stage of marathon runners around the world.
It was at the age of 22 that Hwang Yeong-jo regained the laurel crown of glory at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, 56 years after Sohn Kee-jeong won the Olympic marathon. He left the track and track that he had been running endlessly in April 1996, leaving a lot of regret when his Olympic re-challenge was canceled four years later.
In addition, Lee Bong-ju, a national marathoner who was selected as the ‘2022 Korean Sports Hero’, set a record by completing the 41st run at the age of 39, winning the gold medal at the 90th National Sports Festival marathon in 2009, and ending his 20-year marathon life splendidly. Decorated and retired.
Domestic marathoners tend to start full-course marathons relatively early. In contrast, foreign players debut late in their late 20s and play for a long time until their late 30s. The late 20s and mid-30s are the best age to set records for the marathon, but in Korea, I think that starting too early, exhausting oneself early and being overworked will hinder the establishment of a better record.
When I competed in the 1984 LA Olympics marathon, Portugal’s Carlos López won the gold medal at the age of 37, setting a new Olympic record of 2:09:21.
At the 2022 Berlin Marathon held on September 25, 38-year-old marathon runner Eliud Kipchoge (Kenya) set a new world record of 2:01:09. By 30 seconds ahead of the record of 2 hours 01 minutes 39 seconds he set in the same event in 2018, he made us look forward to the dream of “sub-2” (finishing a marathon within 2 hours) coming true. However, in the Korean marathon, the new Korean record of 2 hours 7 minutes 20 seconds set by Lee Bong-ju at the 2000 Tokyo International Marathon has not been broken for 22 years.
Looking at this year’s domestic marathon, Lee Jang-gun (32, Cheongju City Hall) of the male domestic department won the Daegu International Marathon on April 3, the first event of elite athletes who completed winter training, with a record of 2 hours 17 minutes and 14 seconds, and the female domestic marathon. In the division, Sumin Lee (30, Nonsan City Hall) took first place with a time of 2 hours 32 minutes 08 seconds.
Then, at the Seoul Marathon and the 92nd Dong-A Marathon held on April 17, Joo-Han Oh (34, Cheongyang-gun Office), a naturalized Kenyan in 2018, won the men’s domestic division with a record of 2 hours 11 minutes and 16 seconds, and the women’s marathon. The domestic championship was won by Choi Gyeong-seon (30, Jecheon City Hall), who recorded 2 hours 30 minutes 42 seconds.
Oh Joo-han (34, Cheongyang-gun Office) won the men’s marathon at the 103rd National Sports Festival on October 9, recording 2 hours 18 minutes 07 seconds. At the Gyeongju International Marathon on October 16, the Chuncheon Marathon on October 23, and the JTBC Seoul Marathon on November 6, domestic female athlete Kim Do-yeon (29, Samsung Electronics) won with a record of 2 hours 27 minutes 29 seconds, breaking the standard record for the 2024 Paris Olympics. In the midst of passing, good records did not come out in 2022 as expected. 안전놀이터
The Olympic marathon standard record is getting shorter and shorter, but the Korean marathon, which has not been able to keep up with the world-class speed competition, is in trouble ahead of the Hangzhou Asian Games in September 2023 and the Paris Olympics in 2024.
Oh Joo-han (34, Cheongyang-gun Office) and other women’s marathon signboards Kim Do-yeon (29, Samsung Electronics) and Choi Jeong-yoon (29, k-water) are showing steady growth, but there are no promising candidates to succeed them, and the existing prospects are turning into Zorro. As these phenomena overlap, the future of the Korean marathon is not so bright.
It is the consistent desire of the marathon world that a more systematic and long-term fostering policy should be established. One of the urgent tasks is to secure a stable job so that players do not have an unstable future after retirement.