Korea Video
Occasionally, people send me things, & ask that I post them on the blog. This one was very unusual.
An American living in Korea, David Jensen, wrote me this note:
I’m an American ex-pat in Korea and an (amateur) speedskater.
I recently posted on youtube a video of my adventures at Taerung Ice Rink in Seoul. It doesn’t have much actual speedskating, just footage of Seoul, the training facility and a little bit of commentary on Korean sports.
Hopefully, I will be able to get some footage of some competitions in the near future.
In his video, there is a tantalizing moment, 1:09 in, where you see the long track in Seoul, and a little kid in a very Korean hat skating by.
The rest of his video is commentary on a Korean Olympic Museum.
David continues:
There seems to be a lot of misperceptions about Korean speedskating. First, everyone seems to think that Korea is really cold.
Compared to upstate New York (my home), Korean winters are mild. It would be really fun if the Han River iced over, but sustantial snowfall and natural ice are very rare here.
Second, people seem to think that everyone in Korea is a ST skater.
Seoul, Korea has maybe half a dozen ice rinks with a population 20+ million people. Needless to say, most people aren’t ice skating on the weekends.
I think the Koreans have adopted an East German style training (minus the steroids) - take a few talented kids and train them to death.
Since the vast majority of Koreans lives in proximity to Seoul, you don’t have the kind of issues that young U.S. speedskaters have with being far away from professional training facilities.
Like in the US, Korean speedskaters are a small but very dedicated group of people.
I have always thought that if you added up all the medals won at Long track worlds, short track worlds, and inline worlds, Korea would, in sum total, be the leading skate nation in the world.
I wonder how many licensced, competitive speedskaters there are in Korea? I do know that their masters championship had 60 skaters in it.
Hey David, where are you from in Upstate NY? That is my ancestral stomping grounds!
Filed under: Audio/Video
I’m from Endicott (between Owego and Binghamton). Although, I didn’t get into speedskating until I got to Korea, so I’m not too familiar with the Upstate New York speedskating scene.
[…] Posted on March 30, 2008 by peterdoucet Here are a couple of entries from Andrew Love- see Korea Video & Bradford Knee & Rest. He writes ‘But mostly I am drinking wine in front of a […]
hey andrew could you introduce me (via email) to david? i’m leaving for korea tomorrow and am interested in learning more about the speedskating scene in s. korea.
ps. unrelated to speedskating - how are you guys (jess and rz)? i move in september - we should try and get together before i go.
jas
Since both of you guys seem to be from upstate NY.. any chance you could hook me up with some contacts for speedskating around here? I’m from albany but I’d be willing to drive an hour or even more to get involved with something. I want to get better and I need to be around people faster than me for that to happen.