National sports event paves way to Korea's Olympic saga

The 1951 games in Gwangju took place during the Korean War. Courtesy of Bae Soon-hak

By Kim Se-jeong

Bae Soon-hak

Bae Soon-hak, 78, former secretary general of the Korean Sports and Olympic Committee, is a living witness to the rise and fall of the National Sports Festival (NSF). Representing their provinces and metropolitan cities, athletes from all sports disciplines compete to win medals.

"Korea's current strong presence in international sports events is possible because of the annual domestic sports gala," Bae said during a recent interview with The Korea Times.

Bae said the NSF has been the springboard to the Olympic Games.

"The National Sports Festival discovered and nurtured athletes," he said, adding that the event which takes place every year "is a great system to help athletes improve their performances through competition. Athletes work hard to win medals at the domestic event. As competition for medals has become fiercer year after year, the athletes' overall performance had improved a lot. Hence its critical role in international sports events."

Bae spent four decades organizing and hosting the NSF until 2000 when he stepped down from the job. However, he is still affiliated with the NSF organizing committee as a senior adviser.

The 2019 NSF marks its centenary. Every year, the competition draws tens of thousands of athletes and spectators to hosting cities in the fall and winter.

This year, more than 20,000 athletes from all over the country and abroad will compete in 47 sports, including two exhibition events, from Oct. 4 to 10.

Korea's first Olympic medalist was Kim Sung-jib in weightlifting. Kim won the bronze medal at the 1948 London Olympics. The first silver medal was won by boxer Song Soon-chun in the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games. The first gold medalist was Yang Jeong-mo, a wrestler, at the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games. In the 1960s and 70s, Korea won dozens of medals in boxing and wrestling. The two sports were popular back then because they were the shortcut for those from humble beginnings to rise to fame and earn money.

As Korea got richer, however, people moved away from these sports, leading to a fall in their popularity. Instead of boxing, people began trying out different sports and some of them were outstanding. Short track speed skating, figure skating, swimming, taekwondo, golf, gymnastics and table tennis were among the medal-grabbing sports. At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Korea won its first Olympic gold medal in baseball.

Over the past century, Bae said there have been 12 historical events that shaped the NSF into what it stands for today.

1. National Sports Festival born out of the Independence Movement

In 1920, a year after Korea's 1919 Independence Movement against Japan, intellectuals and sports enthusiasts gathered in Seoul to launch the Chosun Sports Association in July.
In November that year, the association hosted a sport event which is considered the beginning of the National Sports Festival.

2. Baseball

Baseball was the first and only game that was played at the inaugural event. It was chosen because it was already a popular sport and thus it was easy to mobilize people to take part.

Independence fighter Lee Sang-jae makes the first pitch at the first National Sports Festival in Seoul in 1920.

3. Winter games

The first winter games started in 1925 and the venue was the Han River. "Skating has a long history especially in the northern part of Korea because of the cold winters and frozen rivers," Bae Soon-hak, the former secretary general of the Korean Sports and Olympic Committee, said. Ice skaters competed in two different forward and backward races. The backward races included 300, 600, 800 meters and a relay game. "It's not very difficult to move backward on the ice. It just shows a different time," Bae said.

Athletes and crowds are in and around the ice rink set up on the Han River during the 1947 National Sports Festival.

4. Marathon boom in the early 1930s

By the 1930s, athletes were also competing in short distance marathons. After 1933 a full marathon was introduced at the National Sports Festival. The 1932 Los Angeles Olympics had a great impact on Korean marathoners as two Koreans ― Kim Eun-bae and Kwon Tae-ha ― made the top 10 in the event. Their saga triggered a full marathon boom in Korea.

Marathons had an interesting rule.

"Postmen and people who pulled rickshaws were banned from participating. The reason was because the organizers considered them professional runners and their participation went against the spirit of amateurism."

In the 1934 festival, Sohn Kee-chung finished the men's marathon with an unofficial world record before winning the marathon at the Berlin Olympic Games in 1936.

Marathoners leave the starting point during the game in 1934.

5. Archery since 1947

Archery is what defines South Korea in the Olympics as the country has dominated in medal standings. The seed was planted in 1947 when archery was chosen for the National Sports Festival. "There are two archery events in the National Sports Festival now. One is traditional archery and the other is western archery which features in the international games. The difference is rules. Until 1982, only traditional archery was played, and from 1983, Western archery was added," said Bae.

6. Wartime sports event

The National Sports Festival in 1950 was cancelled because of the outbreak of the Korean War. But in 1951 when the two Koreas were still at war, the sports competition was held in Gwangju, drawing more than 2,000 amateur athletes. "News traveled via a word of mouth and hand-delivered letters because the war limited the means of communication," said Bae.

The festival continued in 1952 as well. "The fact that the games continued amid the war was reported a lot by the international media, impressing many in the sports community."

7. Popularity and accident

The National Sports Festival was a popular public event. Given that there was not so much entertainment back then, the festival, especially the opening ceremony, was a big show in town, drawing tens of thousands of people. Tickets were free but they were traded in the black market. In 1964 in Gwangju, people who flocked to see the opening ceremony, stampeded into the main gate of the city's sports stadium, which collapsed, killing 14 people and injuring more than 100.

8. Card stunt

Card stunts were a big selling point for the festival's opening ceremony. These are like the North Korea's mass Arirang Festival in which people in the audience raise cards and create an image through coordinating a sequence of actions. It was first introduced in the 1967 festival with 5,000 students.

A year earlier in 1966, then Secretary General of the Korean Sports & Olympic Committee Min Kwan-sik saw the card stunt at the Bangkok Asian Games. Impressed by it, Min dispatched a group of officials to learn. The stunt needed a large of number of people and high school students were for years mobilized to do it. The 1988 Olympic Games saw the peak of the card stunt before it slowly disappeared. "It was getting more difficult to mobilize students."

A card stunt at the opening ceremony in 1985's domestic Olympics

9. First indoor ice rink opened in 1964

The first indoor ice rink, a private one, opened in 1964. Before then, winter sports games took place on frozen rivers and lakes, or sometimes an artificial space filled with frozen water.

In 1972, a government-sponsored outdoor ice rink also opened in Taereung, Seoul. This still remains a winter sports venue. Figure Skater Kim Yuna first competed at the national winter sports festival in 1999.

"I would say thanks to this, we can see gold-medalist skaters like Lee Sang-hwa."

10. Taereung training center open amid North-South competition

The National Training Center in Taereung, Seoul opened in 1966, two years after the Tokyo Olympics in which South Korean athletes performed more poorly than the North Korean team. With the opening of the training center, the authorities also revamped the athlete training programs with the hope that the South would outperform the North. North-South tensions in sports continued through the 1970s and 80s, contributing to the improvement of Korea's sports infrastructure.

An aerial view of the Taereung National Training Center which opened in 1966.

11. A rehearsal for 88 Seoul Olympics

Most National Sports Festivals in the 1980s were, in one way or another, a rehearsal for two upcoming events: the 1988 Olympic Games and the 1986 Asian Games. In 1983, the sports festival saw a digitalized system which recorded events and their results. In 1985, yachting, the modern pentathlon and canoeing became official games for the festival so that athletes could practice.

Yachting was first introduced in the 1986 games in preparation for the 1988 Seoul Olympics.

12. Festival under attack by professional sports

With its popularity at its peak in the 1980s leading up to the 88 Olympics, the National Sports Festival saw its public appeal dwindling. One big reason was the success of professional sports, such as baseball, soccer and basketball.