Athletes born in the 2000s predict a great rebellion

Among ball games, only women’s handball is eligible to participate.
Minimum team size of around 150 players
The goal is also lowered to 15th overall with 5 or more gold items.

Raising hopes for growth among Tokyo Olympic prospects
‘Swimming’ Hwang Seon-woo continues his legacy and is expected to win a medal
‘Badminton’ Ahn Se-young is also the strongest in name and reality

‘Judo’ Heo Mimi and ‘Table Tennis’ Shin Yubin are strong candidates
Attention is paid to ‘gymnastics’ Seo-jeong Jeong, who grew up as the eldest sister.
‘Archery’ Im Si-hyun is interested in whether he will hold a grand opening in Paris

The 2024 Paris Olympics, which opens on the 26th of next month, is just over a month away. This is the first Summer Olympics held in the ‘post-Corona era’, and returns as a grand festival for people around the world with spectators eight years after Rio 2016. Paris, which is one of the world’s largest tourist cities and hosted the Summer Olympics for the first time in 100 years since 1924, plans to attract the world’s attention by installing stadiums at various famous sites.

However, the Korean team’s prospects for the Paris Olympics are not bright. This is because the worst performance in history is expected since the 1984 Los Angeles (LA) Games. As they failed to qualify for the Olympics in all ball sports except women’s handball, the team size is around 150, the smallest number since Montreal in 1976 (50). The team’s goals are also much lower than in the past, when the goal was to win at least 5 gold medals and rank 15th in the overall ranking, earning 10 gold medals and entering the top 10.

It’s not like there’s no hope. The biggest charm of sports is ‘unpredictability’. Promising players who confirmed their potential by participating as teenage players in Tokyo 2020 are now in their early 20s and have begun to show their peak skills. A turnaround is possible if the players born in the 2000s, who are now the main players of the Korean team, show off their youthful spirit and spirit.

The 2020 Tokyo Olympics, held in 2021 after being postponed for a year due to the novel coronavirus infection (Corona 19), is also remembered as an event that announced the emergence of athletes born in the 2000s. Those from Generation Z, who were in their late teens at the time, received applause for showing themselves enjoying the biggest stage rather than focusing on wins or losses or the color of the medal. Now, the 2024 Paris Olympics is the first competition to be played mainly by athletes born in the 2000s. Most of them are in their early 20s and have reached the peak of their physical and athletic abilities and are expected to influence the performance of the Korean team.

Seonwoo Hwang

The ‘golden generation’ has emerged in Korean swimming, and among them, Hwang Seon-woo (born in 2003) is considered the ace of the national swimming team and is expected to bring a medal in Olympic swimming, which has been missing since ‘Marine Boy’ Park Tae-hwan (retirement). The opportunity for Hwang Sun-woo to make his name widely known was in Tokyo three years ago. Hwang Seon-woo, who advanced to the semifinals by taking first place in the 200m freestyle from the preliminaries, also passed the finals in first place in the 50m, 100m, and 150m. Unfortunately, he fell to 7th place in the last 50m due to overpacing in the early and mid-half, but he showed off his potential to the fullest.

After the Tokyo Olympics, Hwang Sun-woo emerged as a global powerhouse. He won silver, bronze, and gold medals at the 2022-2024 World Championships, respectively, setting a record of winning three consecutive World Championship medals, something that even Park Tae-hwan could not do. Hwang Sun-woo, who is considered one of the strong candidates for the 200m freestyle gold medal, said at the recently held national swimming team media day, “The disappointment in Tokyo made me who I am today. “I have gained experience by participating in many international competitions since Tokyo 2020,” he said. “Currently, there are eight athletes who have recorded a time of 1 minute and 44 seconds in the 200m freestyle.” He expressed his firm determination, saying, “I want to win a medal by setting a record of 1 minute and 43 seconds.”

Hwang Sun-woo is not the only member of the swimming team. It has changed from the days when Park Tae-hwan was struggling. Kim Woo-min (born in 2001) is a ‘double horse’ who leads the national swimming team along with Hwang Sun-woo. Kim Woo-min, a mid- to long-distance powerhouse whose main event is the 400m freestyle, won three gold medals at the Hangzhou Asian Games held last year and a gold medal in the 400m freestyle at the 2024 Doha World Championships held in February, showing his medal prospects in Paris as well. The 400m freestyle is the first race event in Paris. Kim Woo-min said, “I think that if I get off to a good start in the 400m freestyle, other athletes will also see good results. I will definitely get on the podium in the 400m. “I’m greedy,” he said.

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Ahn Se-young (born in 2002) is considered a strong candidate to continue the gold vein of Korean badminton that has been cut off since Lee Yong-dae and Lee Hyo-jung in Beijing in 2008. Last year, she participated in 14 tournaments, including the World Championship and All England Open, won 13 finals and 10 championships, making her the world’s best badminton women’s singles in name and reality. In the finals of the Asian Games in Hangzhou in October, she showed a huge physical advantage over her old enemy Chen Yufei (China) and won the gold medal, despite suffering a knee injury in the first set. Due to this knee injury, she has had some ups and downs this year, but she appears to have fully recovered her skills, winning the Singapore Open on the 2nd and runner-up at the Indonesia Open on the 9th. Ahn Se-young, who was eliminated in Tokyo three years ago after losing 0-2 to Chen Yu-Fei in the quarterfinals, will participate in the Olympics in Paris as the world’s No. 1 player.

Heo Mimi

Judo team member Heo Mimi (born in 2002) is considered a strong candidate to connect the gold chain that has been broken since London 2012 with Kim Jae-beom and Song Dae-nam. The first gold medal in women’s judo goes back 28 years to Cho Min-seon in Atlanta in 1996. She is a descendant of independence activist Heo Seok. Born to a Korean father and Japanese mother, Heo Mimi followed her grandmother’s will and renounced her Japanese nationality in 2021 and wore her Taegeuk symbol. Mimi Heo is gaining momentum by winning the gold medal at the World Judo Championships last May by defeating world No. 1 Christa Deguchi (Canada). Heo Mimi, a complete athlete who has absorbed the strengths of both Korean and Japanese judo, will compete on the Olympic stage for the first time in her life in Paris.

Shin Yubin

Shin Yu-bin (born in 2004), the famous women’s table tennis player, will also participate in her second Olympics in Paris following Tokyo. Shin Yu-bin, who was famous for her table tennis prodigy from her childhood, earned her Taegeuk mark at the age of 14 years, 11 months and 16 days, making her the youngest national team member in Korean table tennis history. She is ranked No. 2 in the world in mixed doubles, where she plays with Shin Yu-bin and Lim Jong-hoon. If she maintains her current world ranking until the Olympics, she could enter as the No. 2 seed and make the bracket where she doesn’t face China until the final.

Yeo Yeo-jeong (born in 2002), who won the bronze medal in vaulting at the Tokyo Olympics and achieved the first Olympic medal in Korean women’s gymnastics history, is also overcoming her slump and heading to Paris. Yeo Yeo-jeong, who stamped her name not as ‘Yeo Hong-cheol’s daughter’ but as her own name with her performance in Tokyo, made history in Korean women’s gymnastics once again by winning a bronze medal in the vault event at last year’s World Championships. Newly written. Yeo Yeo-jeong, who was the youngest member at the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta and Palembang, will compete for her second consecutive Olympic medal in Paris as the eldest member of the women’s gymnastics team.

There is also Ban Hyo-jin (born in 2007) who will continue the lineage of ‘high school shooters’ in Korean shooting. So far, in Korean shooting, high school student shooters such as Yeo Gap-soon of Barcelona in 1992 and Kang Cho-hyun of Sydney in 2000 have shone brightly. Ban Hyo-jin is an athlete who started shooting after watching the 2020 Tokyo Olympics three years ago. Ban Hyo-jin, who has emerged as a top athlete just three years after starting her shooting career, placed first in the women’s 10m air rifle event at the national team trials for the Paris Olympics and wore the Taegeuk mark. Her skills are growing rapidly at the recently concluded 2024 International Shooting Federation (ISSF) World Cup in Munich, where she won a silver medal.

Archery has an absolute importance in this Paris Olympics. Women’s national team ace Im Si-hyeon (born in 2003) is the successor to Ansan, who won three gold medals in Tokyo 2020. At last year’s Hangzhou Asian Games, Im Si-hyun showed off her spirit by defeating Ansan 6-0 in the finals of the women’s individual event, following the mixed team event and the women’s team event. Although she was eliminated in the round of 32 in the 3rd round of the World Cup, which is the final mock exam of the Paris Olympics on the 22nd, her basic skills are among the best in the world, so she is attracting attention as to whether she will be able to hold the coronation ceremony in Paris.

In addition, Kim Je-deok (born in 2004), who won two gold medals in the archery mixed team event and men’s team event at the 2020 Tokyo, where he participated as a high school student, will also play with the Taegeuk symbol in Paris. In Taekwondo, which received no gold for the first time in Tokyo 2020 after being adopted as an official sport in Sydney in 2000, Park Tae-jun (born in 2004) is raising expectations as a golden prospect. Seong-min Seong (born in 2002), a modern pentathlete, also won a gold medal in the final of the women’s individual event at the recent World Championships held in China and qualified for the Paris Olympics.

Reporter Nam Jeong-hoon [email protected]

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2024-06-23 21:29:41
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