[AG/english]Victory by 10cm: Lee Young-sun’s 2nd Consecutive Winning in Javelin

Lee Young-sun (28, Chongsun County) succeeded in winning women’s javelin twice in a row in the Asian Games. The winning of the gold medal this time conveys much more meaning in that this was the last international competition for her and, thus, the last change she could break her own Korean record.

In the Oct. 7th final for women’s javelin held at Busan Asiad Main Stadium, Lee threw the javelin up to 58m87cm, breaking her own record of 58m17cm by 70cm, which was set up in May of this year. Silver medal went to Lili Liang of China, who threw 10cm shorter than Lee. Liang had to settle for the silver medal in ’98 Bangkok Asian Games as well, following Lee. The bronze medal went to Xiaoyan Ha of China (58m29cm)

Purely in terms of records, Lee ranked 4th among the athletes. Thus, she would have to settle for the bronze medal, predicting purely based on the records.

Her record was behind those of Takako Miyake of Japan (61m15cm), Liang of China (59m82cm) and Ha of China (59m76cm).

Three key physical conditions a javelin player has to be “equipped” with are: long arms, tall height and speed. But her statue is a little small for a javelin athlete: 1m65cm and 64kg. Liang of China, for example, stands 1m70cm and weighs 58kg. Thus, Liang exceeds Lee in height and length of arms. Moreover, Lee, facing retirement, lacks stamina.

But Lee has made up for all of these handicaps with her unique feature of speed, and finally succeeded in making a new record. Especially, her first trial, which led to the new record, was shot out at an idealistic angle. On the other hand, Liang empowered herself too much to bend the route of her spear like that of a basketball shooting. This nuisance in the throwing form resulted in the 10cm difference.

Just off the podium, Lee said in a voice choked with tears, “This was the last time for me to play in an international game. I feel really happy for ending up my career with this beautiful record. Since I have become a little aged for an athlete, I had a hard time during training.”

Jong-Koo Yang