Rio Olympics (1) / Behind the Competitors
In the living room where I reside, there is a large picture of Marathon runner Hwang Young-Cho who won Gold medal in 1992 Barcelona Olympics. At that time, there was a newspaper clip saying that he was the 2nd Korean person to ever win the Gold in Marathon. (After marathon runner Sohn, Kee-Chung who ran under the Japanese flag in 1936 Berlin Olympics 56 years ago,)
This Korean Marathoner made the entire world surprised, and everyone in Korea was crazed over the win and all media coverage congratulated and had praised the runner. At that time period, the laborious fruit of getting the stressful training with bad circumstance, the support and encouragement from his supporters, coach and the iron will was what made it possible. Hwang had mismatched feet; his eyes were defective as sweat would pour into his eyes.
Different shoe form and the fact that he would wipe his face constantly as he set the record of 2 hours, 13 minutes and 23 seconds would be been difficult – almost near impossible. His winning was from the long, arduous training, combined with competing against other marathoners – runner Hwang probably had the “title” of this humane victory. But also let us not forget the amazing coach, Mr. Jung Bong-Su who had put everything for him behind his back.
However this year, all the Korean marathoners fell into the worst places in overall ranking. I saw their names being severely punished by the media. They had gone to another place instead of joining the Olympic Athletes Welcoming.
How painful it would’ve been for them to not be able to join in? Turns out on a later article, there was a reason behind that entire situation. I believe the two marathoners did their best. But what burden had held them back? There was no one to watch for their physical condition nor did they have the proper meals. The coaches that were suppose to take care of them in the hotels were not reachable easily, and their body conditions were never checked and primed. On the day of the marathon, all they had was a small pack of rice (Hetban) and they both had to run with sore legs that were never healed, so what good use was there?Also the on the day before the marathon, one of them surname Sohn – their father who was very sick had passed away. The father had raised him alone without a mother and the unfortunate son was forced to be not by his father’s side while he passed away. A son’s pain was never counseled while at a far away land to encourage. When I hear from the story of all the athletes, there are many people (who are not visible behind each athlete’s back,) who quietly help in the background. They dedicate their time, effort and money to support the athlete for them to achieve the metal of honor.
Now Korea can also have the physical, financial and enough practice to join and run in the athletics, but why such a bad rank? Do we always have to turn our cold eyes upon the athlete’s alone? Whatever the case is, many people do not care about the passion and the love to raise a new worker but to have quick and easy fame and honor that causes the downfall.
I like baseball and volleyball. In the middle, high school I attended our school baseball team had won in the All-High School team competition, so almost everyone in the school were interested in baseball and even would play baseball. Volleyball, I grew interested in 5th, 6th grade to 8th grade, while attending church I would watch with interest whenever young man had volleyball to play. I would pick up the ball and watch from the sideline and grew into the interest of volleyball. Sometimes I go on Youtube to watch Korean Lady’s Volleyball tournaments. Many of the team members stand out. As they represent Korea as a team, they show their passion and teamwork as they play.
In this year’s Rio Olympics, in the pre-trials match which was held in Tokyo, Japan, Korean woman’s team won the Japanese team easily in their home territory – something that probably shocked many Japanese as they once again beat them against them during the actual Olympics match. I said as a joke, “If I had another son, I would probably want one of them as my daughter in law.” But in the actual matches, against Netherland they lost and were stopped in 4th round in advancing. Many of the newspapers showed that agony in their articles. But after few days of that, they said that for the team to make up to the 8th round, it was a miracle. Why would that be? The reason was the people who need to take care of all volleyball players were near minimal.
There were no team doctor available, and furthermore – the team strategist to overcome the other team which requires 2 people at minimum – there was only 1. So the captain had to focus on the translation, the morale and many other things. Many newspapers pointed out that the ones responsible only cared for the medal and not the athletes. When they won the first Gold Medal in Asian Olympics, all they had received as congratulatory was a hot pot of some soup in a small restaurant in Incheon (Budaejjigae). Did not the Volleyball Association have the funds to support and show appreciation better to the young women who had ran for the nation? I think about if one of the leaders would step up and use even their credit cared to give them better morale boost.
From the early days of August, for 2 weeks my biggest concern in the Olympic was terrorism and the Zika virus that spread through mosquitoes. Thankfully, none of the terrorism act ever happened, and after 2 weeks of the end in current, none of the athletes or anyone who had participated in the Olympics was infected. How thankful that none were harmed.
(August 29th, 2016) |
The Strange Acorn Tree 
Rio Olympics (1) / Behind the Athletes