No South Koreans will face more pressure to earn medals at the PyeongChang Olympics than short track speed skaters. The team named after this past weekend’s Olympic Trials includes several new faces, leaving off Olympic and world champions.
The surprises came on the men’s side.
Double 2010 Olympic champion Lee Jung-Su, the top South Korean male skater this World Cup season, failed to make the Olympic team.
As did Sin Da-Woon, the 2013 World overall champion who won the 1500m at the 2017 World Championships.
Instead, the team will be led by Seo-Yi Ra, who clinched his spot last month by winning the world overall title. The rest of the team includes fellow Olympic rookies Lim Hyo-Jun, Hwang Dae-Heon and Kim Do-Kyoum, which Yonhap News Agency called “no-names.” Kwak Yoon-Gy, a 2010 Olympian, rounds out the men’s roster of five.
The South Korean men shockingly went medal-less in Sochi, a result that simply cannot be repeated at South Korea’s first home Olympics. The 2018 Olympic men’s team includes zero holdovers from the most recent Olympics for the first time since short track’s debut at Albertville 1992.
South Korea has won 53 Winter Olympic medals. A total of 42 of them have come in short track. South Korea has won 21 Olympic short track gold medals. The next-highest country has won nine.
The South Korean women’s team for PyeongChang has more star power in Shim Suk-Hee and Choi-Min Jeong, who combined to win the world overall titles in 2014, 2015 and 2016.
They’ll be joined by Sochi Olympian Kim Alang and Olympic rookies Lee Yu-Bin and Kim Ye-Jin.
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