It is no exaggeration to say that this year is the year of Ahn Se-young. All the issues that were piled up in the sports world erupted with Ahn Se-young’s Olympic gold medal.
Last August 5 (Korean time) was a historic day in the history of Korean badminton. It was the day that Ahn beat China’s He Bing Zhao in the women’s badminton singles final at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Ahn Se-young’s gold medal at the time was Korea’s first gold medal in 28 years since the singles competition gold medal won by Soo Soo-hyun at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. Korea’s previous gold medal at the badminton Olympics was the last gold medal won by Lee Yong-dae and Lee Hyo-jong during the 2008 Beijing Games. Ahn Se-young herself was also the first Olympic gold medal to win after overcoming the hardships of elimination from the quarterfinals at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Olympic Gold in 28 Years, But…
It took some time for Ahn to rebound. When Ahn played in the singles final at the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games last year, she suffered severe knee injuries. Ahn suffered a ruptured knee tendon during the match, but she ran until the end and won the gold medal in fighting spirit.
The problem was afterwards, however. Ahn spent about two weeks in rehabilitation when she returned to Korea, believing that the injury was mild. However, the re-examination revealed that the injury was much worse than that.
While recovering, Ahn had to suffer major and minor ups and downs. She won the Malaysian Open in January by beating Dai Zhi Ying of Taiwan, but only reached the quarterfinals five days later at the Indian Open, and as soon as she won the French Open in March, she failed to make it to the semifinals a week later.
After battling a knee injury for about a year, Ahn overwhelmingly made it to the finals in August, when she fully recovered from her form at the 2024 Paris Olympics. She then beat He Bing Zhao to claim her first women’s singles gold medal in 28 years.
However, Ahn did not fully enjoy the joy. Standing in the mixed zone after winning the title, Ahn made Paris cry with a truly shocking revelation.
“My injury was worse than I thought and I couldn’t get better,” he said. “I was very disappointed in the national team, which took my injury easy.” He then said, “I thought it would be difficult to continue with the national team after this moment.”
corruption in the sports community
Ahn’s remarks shook not only the badminton scene but also the sports community as a whole. After the revelation, all absurdities lurking at the Korea Badminton Association erupted all at once. The association was under investigation by the government on various allegations of payback, breach of trust and administrative irregularities, led by Chairman Kim Taek-kyu.
In addition, the issue of Shin Myung-joo, chairman of the Korea Shooting Federation, resigning due to reports on overdue wages during the Olympics continued. The Korean Sports Council, which is in the middle of the problem, could not avoid the controversy over responsibility.
The controversy over old-fashioned values at the Korean Olympic Committee (KOC) was under fire even before Ahn’s disclosure. In addition, the controversy over the culture, sports and tourism minister Yoo In-chon and KOC chairman Lee Ki-heung were in dispute even before the Paris Olympics. Chairman Lee Ki-heung gathered 400 national team players and pushed ahead with the Marine Corps drill under the pretext of forming a “one team,” but reportedly said it was thanks to the Marine Corps drill when the team produced better-than-expected results at the Olympics. 메이저놀이터
Yoo, on the other hand, strongly criticized the training, calling it an “obsolete and outdated idea.” Voices have been raised everywhere to reform vertical culture, power abuse, violence and outdated ideas that have been rooted in the sports community.
In July, right before the Olympics, the Korean Olympic Committee passed an amendment to its articles of association that restricted the two-term presidency of sports organizations, and Minister Yoo expressed his opposition to the approval. In fact, it meant to block Chairman Lee from serving his third consecutive term. Since then, the committee has unilaterally canceled the dismissal ceremony when the Olympic athletes returned home, revealing the structure of fierce conflict with the Ministry of Culture and Sports.
In response, the Korea Football Association appointed Hong Myung-bo, the coach of Ulsan, to the national team. The incident, which had shaken the soccer community, spread to the entire sports community using Ahn’s revelation as a catalyst. The ruling and opposition parties have joined forces to hit the sports community for corruption.
Three of the major sports organizations that shook this year are at a crossroads. While Badminton Association President Kim Taek-kyu, Sports Association President Lee Ki-heung, and Korea Football Association President Chung Mong-kyu are all set to seek consecutive terms, new runners have come forward to strongly criticize the existing system. To prevent this, the government is shouting out “unification of candidates” at the top of its voice.
“Even if both Chairman Lee Ki-heung and Chairman Chung Mong-gyu run, the election is likely to proceed normally,” Culture, Sports and Tourism Minister Yoo In-chon said in a regular briefing on the 18th. “This time, we hope that something that can self-purify will happen because several people came out as candidates, not in the form of election.” The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has prepared a lot of measures to reform sports policy. I will tell you again in January next year about sports policy after seeing the election results.”
