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1936 Berlin |
Athletics Men's marathon |
Sohn Kee-chung (August 29, 1912 - November 15, 2002) became the first medal-winning Korean Olympian, together with his teammate Nam Sung-yong when he won 1936 Berlin Olympics Marathon as a member of the Japanese delegation.
Born in Sinŭiju, North P'yŏngan Province, Sohn Kee-chung was educated at Yangjung High School (양정고등학교) and Meiji University in Japan, from which he graduated in 1940. Between 1933 and 1936, he ran 13 marathons and won 10 of them. He set the World Best time of 2 hours, 26 minutes 42 seconds on 3 November 1935, which endured until 1947. His personal best was even better, 2 hours 25 minutes and 14 seconds for the course 520m longer than the standard one, and 2 hours 24 minutes and 51 seconds for a probable short course. He participated in the 1936 Summer Olympics as a marathon runner who finished 42.195 kilometres in 2-hours, 29-minutes, and 19.2-seconds. He broke the olympic best and received the gold medal.
As Korea in the 1930s was part of the Empire of Japan, Sohn Kee-chung competed as part of the Japanese delegation in the Olympics, and he had to use the Japanese name Son Kitei, the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese characters making up his name. However, Sohn Kee-chung refused to sign his names in Japanese and signed only in his Korean name, and even sketched the shape of Korea beside his signatures. When interviewers asked him about his country, he would clarify that Korea is his mother country. When he received the award, so overcome with emotion that the flag rising was of Japan and not of Korea, he shed tears.
One of Korea's local newspapers, Dong-a Ilbo, purposefully removed the Japanese flag in the photo of Sohn Kee-chung receiving the award. This act so enraged the Japanese regime that 8 newspaper personnels were imprisoned, and the newspaper was forced to stop operation for 9 months.
After the Olympics, he coached runners like:
- Suh Yun-bok, winner of the Boston Marathon in 1947, who broke his world record with time of 2 hours 25 minutes 39 seconds
- Ham Kee-yong, winner of the Boston Marathon in 1950
- Hwang Young-Cho, who was the gold medalist of the 1992 Summer Olympics marathon, and for whom Sohn Kee-chung especially went to Barcelona to see, was under Sohn's moral and spiritual influence.
Eventually, he became the Chairman of the Korean Sporting Association.
At the 1988 Summer Olympics, he carried the Olympic torch into the stadium at the opening ceremony. He wrote an autobiography called My Motherland and Marathon (나의 조국 나의 마라톤; 《我的祖國和我的馬拉松》). He was honoured with the Order of Civil Merit(국민훈장; 國民勛章) and posthumously, Grand Cordon (Blue Dragon) of the Order of Sporting Merit.
Sohn Kee-chung died at the age of 90 at midnight on November 15, 2002 due to pneumonia, and was buried in the Daejeon National Cemetery. Afterwards, the Sohn Kee-jung Memorial Park was established.
See also
| Olympic champions in men's marathon | |
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