With South Korea's men's team failing to qualify for the Paris 2024 finals, the number of South Korean-class players participating in the Summer Olympics will fall below 200 for the first time in 48 years since Montreal 1976. On the 26th, Beijing time, the South Korean men's football team commanded by coach Hwang Sun-hong drew 2-2 with Indonesia in the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) U-23 Asian Cup Quarterfinals held in Doha, Qatar, but lost 10-11 in the penalty shootout. According to the rules, only the teams that make it to the top four can hope to qualify for the finals of this year's Paris Olympics, so the South Korean men's football team's record of consecutive Olympic finals since the 1988 Seoul Olympics has been suspended.
The South Korean men's football team failed to reach the Olympic finals for 10 consecutive times
South Korea sent 50 athletes to the Montreal Olympics in 1976, wrestler Yang Jung-mo won the first gold medal in history, and the Korean team at Los Angeles 1984 reached 210 participants, marking South Korea's official entry into the ranks of world sports powers. At Moscow 1980, South Korea was absent due to the international situation, but at Los Angeles 1984, they finished 10th in the medal table with six gold medals.
Since then, South Korea has been sending delegations of more than 200 athletes to the Summer Olympics. Among them, the 1988 Seoul Olympics took advantage of the host country's advantage, sending a total of 477 athletes to participate, and the 1996 Atlanta Olympics exceeded 300 athletes. But the 200-man roster for this year's Paris Olympics will not be possible.
Coach Hwang Sun-hong, who was sent off in the match between South Korea and Indonesia during the quarterfinals of the U-23 Asian Cup, is walking out of the field.
The Korean Sports Association also expects a maximum of 170 to 180 players to participate in the men's football Olympic qualifiers for the team (team) ball event, but with the elimination of men's football, the number of participants in the Korean sports delegation at the Paris Olympics will be set at less than 200. At Tokyo 2021 and Rio de Janeiro 2016, South Korea had 232 and 204 athletes participating, respectively.
South Korean media said that from a macro point of view, South Korea's population decline has led to a weakening of the mass base of elite sports, and this background cannot be ignored, but from the current results, the downturn in team ball games with a large number of players is the direct cause of the sharp decline in the number of South Korean delegations.
The team ball events held at the Paris Olympics include football, basketball, volleyball, hockey, handball, rugby and water polo. Among them, only South Korea won the official ticket for women's handball. The South Korean women's handball team, led by coach Henrik Signel (Sweden), qualified for the finals for the first time in Olympic handball history for the first time in the history of the Olympic Games for the first time in the Asian qualifiers.
The Korean women's handball team has reached the Olympic finals for 11 consecutive years
At the Tokyo 2021 Olympics, the Korean men's football team, women's handball, women's basketball, women's volleyball, and men's rugby reached the finals, and baseball, which was not held at this year's Paris Olympics, also entered the finals. At the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, the Korean team ball event remained in an embarrassing position of "no medal" for the first time in 44 years, and was evaluated as "shocked" at the time.
South Korea's team ball event has been rumored to have won medals since the women's volleyball team won a bronze medal at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, to the silver medal in the women's basketball and women's handball at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, and then to the bronze medal won by the men's team at the London 2012 Olympics, but in 2016 they did not win a medal in Rio. For the first time in eight years, it has become difficult for South Korea to reach the podium of the Olympic Games and even to obtain a ticket to the Olympic Games.