Ankle Rehabilitation - "I am still hungry"

The leg which was once famous for delivering brutal judo leg-locks now sports a plaster cast. Two hands which threatened opponents now hold crutches. Lee Won-hui, the single-round winner, is now missing a judo mat. But he now cannot return to his beloved sport. On April, 27 he flew to Germany for surgery on his right ankle and returned home three months later. He still limps to this day.

"The result of the surgery was not bad. But I felt poorly when I woke from the operation because I had never experienced any such surgery in the past."

His staying in Germany for the last three months was not a bad thing. First of all it was because he was with his parents there. He didn’t have the opportunity to become bored because he had to undergo rehabilitation therapy every day except for Sunday.

"The interpreter who I employed asked me to pay 2,500 euros. It was incredible. After that, I lived without an interpreter while I stayed at my aunt`s house that was 100km away from the hospital. But there was no problem bigger than my expectations."

Lee entered an all-out rehabilitation program at an orthopedics clinic in Yangjae-dong, Seoul Monday. His rehabilitation will also be accompanied by exercise therapy at a sports clinic. Song Jun-seob, a doctor in charge, said, " The rehabilitation will go on for the next three-four months, with particular focus on raising bone density around the wound by using high-pressure oxygen therapy equipment.

But Lee is impatient. The National Athletic Meet is scheduled for early October and the first match to select athletes for the next Olympic Games will start on October 23. They are less than three month away. There are many athletes who are desperate to be a so called "post-Lee Won-hui," including Kim Jae-beom, his famous foe in the 73kg class, and Wang Gi-chun, a talented new-comer. "I am not worried because I am confident that I can beat anyone in a match if my condition is good."

But it will be truly impossible for him to reach 100% perfect condition. Time is not enough for training. And he seems to have lost a lot of muscle compared with his form during the Doha Asian games last year. "Now, my condition is not 100% perfect. I have to build muscle…. But I will try again. Some people have told me, "You already achieved all that you wanted.” But from now, I will start all over again. I really want to set new records in this field if my ability allows it. "Twelve single-round wins in a row, the first judo grand slam in Korea, the 48 consecutive winnings…. It really seems that he achieved all that he could. But he said he is still hungry. His immediate target is a gold medal at the Beijing Olympic Games next year. If he wins, he will be Korea’s first back-to-back Olympic champion in Judo. When he was a middle school student, he resolutely stopped drinking coke for his health. The anecdote shows his strong volition. Now, his e-mail ID is “opchampion (Olympic champion).”

why@donga.com