South Korea is not a country usually associated with world class athletes. It is especially not a country that is thought of as one of the world’s leading talent hotbeds.
The nation does not develop high-end talent in a major sport. Korea does not rival the levels of game-changing stars produced by Brazil in soccer, America in basketball, Canada in hockey, or the Dominican Republic in baseball.
Instead, Korean athletes have cornered their share of niche, specialty sports and absolutely blown the competition away.
Within these pockets of carefully selected sports, athletes from Korea have found this peculiar level of dominance that continues generation after generation.
Why? South Korean athletes have an unrelenting ability to focus on improving in one sport. The roots of that phenomenon all started from Cold War politics.
Situational Dominance
Korean athletes have an idiosyncratic level of success in very specific individual sports.
South Korean female golfers have dominated the top 100 rankings on the LPGA for the last twenty years. At any given time, 30 of the top 100 golfers will be Korean, with women like Park Inbee, Ko Jinyoung, and Chun In-gee routinely winning major tournaments.
Modern Olympic archery has been absolutely ruled by South Korea. Korean archers have won 27 out of 39 gold medals since 1984. Men’s archers have won every gold medal in the team event but one since the 2000 Sydney Olympics. The women have won every gold medal available but one in the last ten Olympic competitions.
Short track speed skating is the same story. South Korea has been the medal leaders since the sport’s inception, routinely crushing larger regional rivals China and Japan. They’ve won the most medals at seven of nine Olympics that short track has been featured. Athletes routinely only get to compete at one or two Olympics games because internal competition is so high.
The same narrative is true for sports like shooting, breakdancing, taekwondo, judo, and esports. South Korea routinely ranks in the top 10 for medals won in the Summer and Winter Olympics.
Often success is found in individual sports and often it just takes one champion to change the landscape.
One Spark of Inspiration
The exact moment that Korea became the mecca of women’s golf talent can be traced back to one infamous tournament.
It was the summer of 1998. A young and upcoming golfer named Pak Se-ri was fighting for the US Open title. Pak entered the final round in first place but was battling to keep the lead against American college student Jenny Chuasiriporn.
Disaster struck on the back nine. Pak hit an errant tee shot that landed at the edge of a pond and put her victory in doubt. Pak and her caddy walked up to a ball slightly submerged in water and debated taking a penalty stroke that would likely push her out of the lead.
Pak instead decided to gamble. She ripped her socks off, planted her feet in the pond water, and fearlessly ripped a shot back to safety. She later won in a playoff.
At the time of her win, Pak was the only competitive Korean golfer in the LPGA. Just five years later, there were 20 of her compatriots in the top 100 rankings. Ten years later, there were 30.
Pak’s 1998 US Open win became an immediate media sensation back in her home country. The barefoot shot was replayed over and over for years on TV. She became a national icon and publicly carved a pathway to success for young girls to emulate.
Every sport that is wildly successful in South Korea follows this pathway: dramatic victory, national attention, hordes of young athletes join the sport. It happened when a teenager won an international competition in archery in the 1980s. It happened when a Korean speed skater won a gold medal in the sport’s first Olympics.
The immediate, intense response of a high-profile international victory inspires young athletes to seriously pursue a sport. But the system waiting to nurture their talent is wildly different than most others in the world.
Finding a Lane of Excellency
The fact that South Korean athletes find this level of excellence in sports is an anomaly.
Children in South Korea are infamously dedicated to academics. This time spent on studying directly leads to inactivity. Of the 48 OECD countries, South Korean students spend the most time studying. A quarter of older students put in over 60 hours a week.
The amount of time spent studying takes directly away from physical activity. Less than half of students play any form of sport before or after school, ranking at the bottom of the OECD. Korean children also play outside much less: they average 34 minutes outside a day compared to just under two hours for American children.
So how are athletes reaching this level of success?
It is because sport is often about finding a lane for excellency, not about participation and experience.
Much of this came from deliberate governmental decisions. Starting in the 1960s, the South Korean government began to support elite sport as a method to build their national image. The autocratic government of the era saw sport as a tool to gain an advantage during the Cold War era. Sport became a vehicle to inspire the nation and build prestige, culminating in hosting the 1988 Seoul Summer Olympics.1
Sport became about focusing on elite and producing results. The process became known as the ‘Athletic Specialist System.’ A series of sport-specific schools opened to allow students to train full-time. At these schools, students live in dorms under the supervision of the coach. These programs focus less on academics because the outside competition to get into good universities is just too tough. School sport focuses on winning at every level, causing what has been labelled a ‘win-at-all-costs’ culture.2
Sports like archery, short track speedskating, taekwondo, or judo all rely on this talent pipeline for future gold medal winners.
Many young athletes pursue this specialized pathway. They fully dedicate themselves to sport while putting academics secondary. As with other countries, the results are still grim: Only 1% of athletes make it to the professional level.
The Reverse Pathway
The process of specializing in one sport is by no-means a Korea-specific issue. In fact, it is a growing issue in all developed countries around the world.
The issue is that it has created a process of a ‘reverse pathway’ for developing athletes.
Most nations – especially most talent hotbeds – have a large base of young athletes playing for fun. Young people play soccer or t-ball to get moving as young children. They join martial arts to learn something new. The sport becomes a passion they play informally on the street. Kids often sample different sports and play in set seasons, switching once the season is done. This has been the typical grassroots sports model, especially in North America.
What makes South Korea unique is that this concept of grassroot sports does not exist. Young children do sample different sports, but it becomes about dedication to one venture. An athlete should get on the elite pathway or quit. There are few recreational options.
Instead of the best amateurs and participants emerging from the crowd, early selection is done and those sports become a serious pursuit. Elite sport determines development, participation in sport does not.
“While most other countries have a large amateur base and work towards elite performance, Korea is the opposite. It has an exceptional elite performance system, but almost no grassroots at all.”
-John Stanley on Archery
The process of a ‘reverse pathway’ creates results and champions with astounding success. It is also a significant handicap to developing talent in some of the world’s biggest sports. There are also rights violations and a lack of other options for athletes along this path.
It is a process that as a Physical Education teacher and coach in Korea, I find endlessly fascinating. Follow along here as I take a deeper dive into these topics to share stories of the athletes and the environment that nurtures their talent.
Sources:
(1) Ha, J.P., Lee, K., & Ok, G. (2015). From development of sport to development through sport: A paradigm shift for sport development in South Korea. The International Journal of the History of Sport, 32(10), 1262-1278. DOI: 10.1080/09523367.2015.1062756.
(2) Kang, S.W., Jeon, H.S., Kwon, S.H., & Park, S.H. (2015). Parental attachment as a mediator between parental social support and self-esteem as perceived by Korean sports middle and high school athletes’. Perceptual & Motor Skills: Physical Development & Measurement, 120(1), 288-303.
Joel Cressman 