Wrestling, Ping-Pong Teams Switch to Night Training In Preparation for Games

The time difference in hours between Greece and Korea is six hours, and the finals of the main summer Olympic events will take place late in the afternoon. This means that the finalists of each event will be determined late at night on Korea time.

According to Han Jong-woo, assistant director of the Korea University Sports Medicine Research Center, “An entire day must be spent to recover for every hour of jet lag. Sports that demands immense amounts of muscular strength and endurance takes relatively more time to adjust to jet lag, while sports that requires much interaction with the nervous system takes relatively less time to adapt to the new environment.” This means that the six-hour difference in time between Greece and Korea would take athletes at least six days to recover from.

This is the reason why the Korean National Olympic Team is scheduled to arrive in Greece on August 6, a week prior to the commencement of the games. Some events are now training on an Athens timeframe. The ping-pong and hockey teams are training late at night, and the wrestling and the weight lifting teams will begin to start game intensity training at Taerung Athletes Village during the night as well. Others have already started training abroad. Lee Bong-ju, participating in the men’s marathon, has been training starting last July 15 for five days in Brecia, Italy. After he recovered from jet lag, he has set up his final training camp at St. Mortiz, Switerland. He then plans to enter Athens on August 5. The Taekwondo team will be in Spain until August 9, and then join the other athletes in Athens.

On the other hand, some of the more delicate events, such as archery and shooting, are training without any time shifting. During the mornings, when concentration levels are high, target practice is usually done, and physical training is performed during the afternoons. If those athletes were to train during the afternoons in accordance to Athens time, when the athletes tend to get sleepy, the athletes might fall into a slump and bring back bad results.

Athletes participating in such events have had prior experience at the Athens pre-Olympics, which makes it easier for them to recover from jet lag. Yeo Gab-soon, the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Women’s Air Rifle gold medallist, was quoted saying, “I did not have to train separately to recover from jet lag, and one or two days of rest after I arrived in Barcelona was all that was needed for me to perform well during the games.”

Jong-Seok Kim kjs0123@donga.com