National Winter Sports Festival Opens

Korean skating star Lee Kang-suk (Korea National Sport University) once again boasted his athletic prowess on February 21 at the 88th National Winter Sports Festival, the biggest annual sports competition in Korea. The World Cup’s top ranked long-track speed skater and 500m gold medallist in this year’s winter Universiade claimed the gold in the men’s 500m event, setting new tournament record of 35:65 seconds. The previous record was Kwon Sun-cheon’s 36:15 in 2005.

Two more tournament records were broken on the same day at the Taereung International Indoor Ice Skating Rink. Choi Keun-won (Uijeongbu City Office) and Kwon Sun-cheon (Seongnam City Office) claimed gold medals in 5000m and 500m adult events with records of 6:57:52 and 36:22, respectively.

Lee Kyu-hyuk (Seoul City Office), a double gold medallist at the 2007 Changchun Winter Asian Games, missed the event to participate in the World Athletes Championship.

The first gold medal of the event was claimed by Park Je-eon (Do-am Middle School) in a 5km cross-country ski event held in Doam-myeon, Pyeongchang-gun, Gangwon Province. Park was awarded the Most Valuable Player title in last year’s event. His record was 11:17:60. The triple gold medallist of last year is aiming for four golds this year. He will take part in the freestyle 10km race, a combined race and a relay race starting February 22.

On the same day, Pyeongchang Yongpyeong Resort held the opening ceremony for the festival and the fourth Special National Winter Festival for the disabled.

Some 1,000 athletes and officials were present at the event, including President Kim Jung-kil of the Korea Sports Council, president Jang Hyang-sook of the Korea Sports Association for the Disabled, and Governor Kim Jin-sun of Gangwon Province. At the sports festival, which will continue until February 24, 3,293 athletes from 15 metropolitan cities and provinces except for Jeju Province will compete for 237 gold medals.

beetlez@donga.com