Daughter of Wind in Women’s Half-Marathon

"Much faster than men!"

In the Jeju Main Stadium where the half-marathon for women adults ends. The race was part of the 83rd National Athletic Contest that started on Nov. 12th. When a woman marathoner began to got ahead of the male marathoners, who started at the same time with women, and rushed toward the finish line, the spectators got excited.

It was Bae Hae-jin (23, photo). She won the gold medal, recording 1hr.12m13s in the half-marathon race (21.0975km). She also made a new Korean record, breaking by 2 seconds the previous one (1hr.12m15s) set up by Chang Jin-sook. The world record is 1 hour 5 minutes and 44 seconds. Along with Bae ran, among others, Chong Yoon-hee who holds the Korean record in the 10,000m set up in the Asian Games, and Yoon Sun-sook who won the 2002 Chosun Daily Marathon Race. Two days ago, Bae also won the gold medal in the 10,000m with a record of 33 minutes and 24 seconds.

Until she graduated from high school, she ran in the 5000m and 10,000m games. After she jointed Seoul Land Corporation, she began a new life of a marathoner. What she aims now is to break the Korean record in the Dong A Seoul International Marathon, which is scheduled to take place in March of 2003.

She is kind of small for a marathoner. She is 162cm tall, weighing 45kg. But she is more determined than anyone else. However hard she may train herself, she does not lose weight. In addition, she has an excellent endurance. By winning against the strong wind and winding roads of Jeju, she has got confident. In preparation for the Dong A Marathon, she will fly over to China next month.

On the other hand, in the gymnastics, national player Kim Dae-eun added two more gold medals to the two he had already earned, placing himself ahead of others as a winner of 4 gold medals.

In the meanwhile, in Judo, Chang sung-ho recorded two gold medals in the 100kg category and the unlimited category.

In the medal race, as of 4 p.m. Nov. 12th, Gyeonggi Province ranks first with 10,036 points, followed by Choongbuk Province (7,771) and Daejeon (7,248).