S. Korean bobsled pilot dreams of Olympic podium

By Kim Boram
SEOUL, Jan. 19 (Yonhap) -- When he heard his team has secured the two-man bobsled
event spot for the upcoming Vancouver Olympics early this week, pilot Kang
Kwang-bae thought that "a camel finally went through the eye of a needle", so
unlikely did it seem.
South Korea's two-man team, ranking 19th in the world, grabbed the last ticket to
Vancouver on Monday after Romania's, Austria's and Italy's second teams were
disqualified, allowing the South Korean team to fill the spot. Only the top 17
countries are allowed to compete at the Olympics.
The news came one month after the country's four-man bobsled team, also piloted
by Kang, won the berth to Vancouver.
"For the first time, we go to the Olympics and compete in all of the bobsled
events -- the two-man and four-man," Kang told Yonhap News Agency in a telephone
interview after finishing a World Cup competition in Europe. "It's like a camel
has succeeded in going through the eye of a needle."
Kang is dubbed a "pioneer" in sliding sport events in South Korea where skating
events, especially short track speed skating, have dominated fans attention in
previous Olympics. Short track speed skating has acquired 17 gold medals since
the 1992 Albertville Winter Olympics.
The 38-year-old veteran player has left his mark on South Korea's unknown three
sliding sport events -- luge, skeleton and bobsled.
He had first associated with ski when he had a part-time job at a ski resort in
Muju, a mountainous resort county, 241 kilometer south of Seoul, at the age of
20.
He started with alpine skiing and had won a local competition but his dream had
shattered along with his torn cruciate ligament in 1995. He could no longer ski
due to the injury.
But instead, Kang carved out a new career for himself as a sledder and luge gave
him the first Olympic experience in 1998.
He had trained on an asphalt road to make it for the national squad for the 1998
Nagano Winter Olympics. He said he was so nervous at his maiden Olympics full of
world-class players but wished he could have stood on the podium.
While studying and training in Innsbruck, Austria, a second knee injury blocked
him again. He lost his national spot and had surgery there.
But he created another chance at skeleton. Since recovering, he managed to work
four hours a day in the European country to earn money to slide down an ice track
twice. And he finally clinched the berth alone to the 2002 Salt Lake City
Olympics for the first time in the country's history.
After the 2006 Turin Olympics, he decided to take on some exciting and new
challenges with the bobsled, also an unknown field in South Korea.
There are just four players who can ride a bobsled in South Korea and they had to
train in Salt Lake City, Utah, because South Korea has no sledding course.
Despite having only two sleds and a slim budget of 8 million won (US$7,116), his
four-man and two-man teams will stand on the world stage in Vancouver next month.

"I'm still very happy that I have come to be able to play at the Olympics
although our teams are known to be far from medals. I'll gain the self-respect of
South Korea's sled events," Kang said.
Kang and his teammate Kim Dong-hyun will go back to Salt Lake City, their main
training site, next week to prepare for the 2010 Winter Olympics that kicks off
on Feb. 12. It will be Kang's fourth Olympics with three different sleds.
brk@yna.co.kr
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