SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea’s Olympic chief has defended a call to ship tons of of athletes to a navy camp subsequent week as a part of preparations for the 2024 Games in Paris, citing a have to instill psychological toughness in opponents.
About 400 athletes, together with ladies, will arrive at a marine boot camp within the southeastern port metropolis of Pohang on Monday for a three-day coaching aimed toward constructing resilience and teamwork, the Korean Sport and Olympic Committee mentioned.
The program, pushed by the committee’s president, Lee Kee-Heung, has confronted criticism from politicians and media who described the coaching camp as outdated and exhibiting an unhealthy obsession with medals.
Officials on the committee have performed down considerations concerning the potential for accidents, saying the athletes is not going to be pressured into the harsher kinds of navy coaching. Morning jogs, rubber-boat using and occasions aimed toward constructing camaraderie can be on this system. Sports officers are nonetheless finalizing particulars of the camp with the Korea Marine Corps., committee official Yun Kyoung-ho mentioned Thursday.
During a gathering with home media, Lee mentioned he hopes that subsequent week’s coaching might assist encourage a “rebound” for the nation’s Olympic athletes who’re caught in a “real crisis situation.” He was referring to what was extensively seen because the nation’s underwhelming medal tallies on this yr’s Asian Games and on the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.
If their performances don’t enhance, South Korea could win simply 5 – 6 gold medals on the Paris Games, Lee mentioned, describing that tally because the “worst-case scenario” for the nation.
The Associated Press was not current on the assembly, which was closed to overseas media, however confirmed Lee’s feedback later by way of the sports activities committee.
Lee first floated the concept concerning the navy coaching camp following the Asian Games in October, when South Korea completed third within the gold medal depend to host China and Japan. The six gold medals South Korean athletes received through the Tokyo Olympics had been the fewest for the nation for the reason that 1984 Los Angeles Games.
South Korea has lengthy linked sports activities with nationwide delight, a legacy that goes again to the successive dictatorships that dominated the nation from the Nineteen Sixties to mid-80s, when navy leaders related Asian Games and Olympic Games achievements with regime loyalty and status.
Since the Seventies, male athletes who win gold medals at Asian Games or any medal on the Olympics have been exempted from 18-21 months of navy service that the majority South Korean males should carry out within the face of North Korean navy threats. Such uncommon privileges aren’t prolonged to even the most important of pop stars, together with BTS, whose seven singers as of this week have all entered their navy service commitments and hope to reunite as a bunch in 2025.
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AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games
