Why is the Chinese short track speed skating head coach Korean? He once helped Dayang Yang and was a good friend of Wang Meng

The theme of today's story is

"Hallyu Speed Skating"

China has won a total of 13 gold medals in the history of the Winter Olympics, of which short track speed skating occupies 10, which is an absolute gold medal. Therefore, the performance of short track speed skating at the Beijing Winter Olympics will surely attract more attention. After more than a year of closed training, the short track speed skating team has returned to the field and is currently participating in the first leg of the short track speed skating World Cup in Beijing.

Along with the athletes was the coaching team. One of the most watched by the audience is the position of head coach of the new short track speed skating national team, which is held by South Korean Kim Sun-tae. Jin Shantai twice taught in Changchun, excavating Zhou Yang, Liang Wenhao, Han Tianyu and others. He also served as the head coach of the short track speed skating national teams in Japan and South Korea, helping South Korea to win 3 gold, 1 silver and 2 bronze at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.

The results of short track speed skating will directly affect the medal performance of the Chinese team at the Beijing Winter Olympics. Who is Kim Sun-tae? What kind of K-pop speed skating will he bring?

1

Kim Sun-tae and Dae-yang yang are athletes of the same era, but his athlete career does not have many highlight moments. Although he went to the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, he was unable to play due to a knee injury. The following year, he participated in the Asian Winter Games held in South Korea, won a bronze medal in the men's 5,000 meters relay and retired. Chinese media once recorded a story about him and DaeYang Yang, one year at the World Championships, Da Yang Yang forgot to wear a neck guard and could not participate according to the rules, Kim Sun-tae saw it and prepared to hand her his neck guard, but was stopped by the Korean coach. Fortunately, there are Canadian athletes who lend a helping hand.

Kim Sun-tae's real coaching career began in China. In 2004, the staff of Changchun Winter Management Center went to South Korea to hire foreign teachers. Former South Korean short track speed skating head coach Jeon Myung-kyu recommended his student Kim Sun-tae. At that time, Kim Sun-tae was 28 years old, retired for 4 years, young, and had a general coaching experience. However, after several trade-offs, the Changchun Winter Management Center invited him to coach at 400,000 yuan a year, plus some poor compensation costs, and the actual annual salary was as high as 500,000 yuan. A comparison is that at that time, the annual salary of high-level coaches in China was only 30,000 or 40,000 yuan.

Kim Sun-tae coached in Changchun twice, once from 2004 to 2006 and once from 2010 to 2014. The annual salary was the same twice, during which a number of athletes were dug up and sent to the national team for Changchun. From 2006 to 2010, he traveled to Japan as head coach of the short track speed skating national team, leading the team to the Vancouver Winter Olympics. Although he did not bring his disciples to the podium, the overall level of the Japanese short track speed skating national team was significantly improved, and Japan proposed a salary increase to seek a contract extension, but was declined. After ending his partnership in Changchun in 2014, Kim Sun-tae was recalled by the Korea Ice Association as the head coach of the short track speed skating team. At the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, Kim Sun-tae led the Korean team to win 3 gold, 1 silver and 2 bronze, washing away the shame of no harvest at the Sochi Winter Olympics.

Kim Sun-tae's second visit to China to teach was invited by Wang Meng. In May 2019, Li Yan stepped down after 13 years of coaching the Chinese short track speed skating team, and Wang Meng took over, and Wang Meng served as the head of the coaching team of both speed skating and short track speed skating national teams. It was at this time that Wang Meng invited Jin Shantai to coach the national team. In May 2020, Wang Meng, who had just taken over the team leader for a year, suddenly stepped down. When Wang Meng stepped down, it was rumored on the Internet that Kim Sun-tae would take over as the head coach of the short track speed skating team until it was officially announced two days ago.

After many years in China, Kim Sun-tae was fluent in Chinese, and his daughter studied in Changchun. He is also familiar with Chinese athletes. Wu Dajing once revealed in an interview that before Jin Shantai coached the Chinese team, the players often saw him in the international arena, and everyone was already familiar with each other.

2

Jin Shantai is best known to Chinese audiences for his excavations of Zhou Yang, Liang Wenhao, Han Tianyu and others.

When Jin Shantai first came to China to coach, the Changchun Winter Management Center formulated a short-term KPI for him, that is, requiring 3 to 4 athletes from the provincial team to be selected for the national team. As a result, under the leadership of Kim Sun-tae, 6 athletes went directly to the national team, including Zhou Yang. Zhou Yang is one of the most concerned athletes in Jin Shantai's Changchun provincial team, and even Jin Shantai's mentor Quan Mingkui has come to Changchun many times to watch Zhou Yang compete. Later achievements proved Kim Sun-tae's vision. Zhou Yang won the short track speed skating women's 1500m championship at the Vancouver Winter Olympics and won the gold medal in the 3000m relay with his teammates.

Zhou Yang is China's youngest Winter Olympic champion, but she has experienced an unforgettable "thank you gate" in her career. After Vancouver won the championship, Zhou Yang first thanked his parents, believing that a Winter Olympic gold medal could "make my father and my mother live a little better." Zhou Yang's parents have leg disabilities, do not have stable jobs, and rely on short-term work for others to maintain their families every day. But this remark caused controversy, and the relevant leaders believed, "Thank you for your father and your mother, no problem, first of all, you still have to thank the country." This has plunged her into the whirlpool of public opinion, and her performance has declined seriously. In the trough, Zhou Yang will remember a sentence that Jin Shantai said when he was in the provincial team, "Think about your parents when you are tired, and think of your parents to survive anything."

After three years of absence from the international competition, Zhou Yang successfully defended the women's 1500m championship at the Vancouver Winter Olympics, breaking South Korea's multi-year monopoly on the project. At the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, Zhou Yang became the flag bearer of the opening ceremony of the Chinese sports delegation. Zhou Yang still keeps in touch with Jin Shantai, and when he encounters problems during the game, he will also ask him for advice, and every time Zhou Yang returns to Changchun, he will also have a meal with Jin Shantai.

Kim Sun-tae also excavated Han Tianyu and Liang Wenhao. Han Tianyu won the silver medal in the men's 1500m of short track speed skating at the Sochi Winter Olympics, and Liang Wenhao won the gold medal in the men's 500m at the World Championships twice. Liang Wenhao was discovered by accident while participating in the national primary school short track, and Jin Shantai immediately after the game found Liang Wenhao's mother and expressed his idea of taking Liang Wenhao to his team for training. Liang Wenhao was reluctant at first, and his father told him that South Korea was in the world leader in short track speed skating and could learn from the experience of foreign coaches, so Liang Wenhao agreed to come down and train with Kim Sun-tae.

3

The China-South Korea showdown was once one of the topics of short track speed skating at the Winter Olympics, and it was accompanied by a lot of controversy. This controversy also existed when Jin Shantai first went to Changchun to teach. At that time, the Korean Ice Association was not willing to send coaches to rival China to coach, and there were many voices in China that opposed the introduction of Korean foreign teachers, and the high annual salary of 400,000 yuan was also considered to be burning money.

Short-track speed skating is China's gold medalist and South Korea's main gold medalist. China has won a total of 13 gold medals in the history of the Winter Olympics, of which short track speed skating occupies 10. South Korea's short-track speed skating contributed to 24 of South Korea's 31 Winter Olympic gold medals, with almost the same proportion. At the last Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, China won only one gold medal, the men's 500m short track speed skating gold medal by Wu Dajing. In the two short track speed skating world championships after the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, the South Korean team won 14 of the 20 gold medals, while the Chinese team earned 4 silver and 4 bronze, and no gold medals were recorded. This gap seems to go back to 17 years ago.

17 years ago, the Changchun Winter Management Center went to South Korea to ask for a coach, with the intention of returning the Short Track Speed Skating between China and South Korea, which had gradually widened, to the same level, and later Kim Sun-tae spotted Zhou Yang and Liang Wenhao in the primary school competition. According to the Changchun Evening News, after Zhou Yang won the Winter Olympic Championship, Changchun had a bout of "Zhou Yang fever", and many young players who learned short track speed skating were looking forward to the day when Jin Shantai could return to Changchun.

Kim Sun-tae returned, and several other Koreans came to China with him. Former South Korean athlete and Winter Olympics 6 gold medalist Ahn Hyun-so will serve as technical adviser to the new short track speed skating national team. In addition, some netizens found that Lin Xiaojun, who was naturalized in China, was also in the national team photo, and he represented South Korea to win the gold medal in the men's 1500 meters and the bronze medal in the men's 500 meters at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. A new Wave of Hallyu is speed skating.