“Wow, I can’t believe it actually happened. I’m just grateful to our athletes for performing so well with so few people, haha.”
Jang Jae-geun (62), the head of the Jincheon National Athletes’ Village, couldn’t stop smiling when we met at the Korea House at the Maison de la Simie in Paris, France, on Nov. 11 (KST). “The Korean athletes are challenging the Paris Olympics with a small commando team,” Jang told the Daily Economic Times just two months ago. Jang was encouraged by the performance of the Korean team, which finished eighth overall (13 gold, nine silver, and 10 bronze medals) with 144 athletes.
Jang, who was the general manager of the Korean team at the Paris Olympics, says, “The small number of athletes made every member of the team more ‘one team’. Athletes, coaches, training partners, and support staff all played their roles well as commandos. Thank you all,” he smiles.
Looking ahead to the Paris Olympics, Jang said, “This is a pivotal event for elite sports in Korea.” The initial goal was to win at least five gold medals and finish in the top 15 overall. But the Korean athletes exceeded their goals. Archery swept all five events, while shooting (3 gold, 2 silver) and fencing (2 gold, 1 silver) exceeded expectations. Taekwondo, judo, and other sports saw generational changes.
“I was expecting seven or eight gold medals, but I really didn’t expect 13,” says Zhang, “and 100 days before the Games started, I was really expecting around five gold medals. But then the athletes and coaches focused on their training, and the look in their eyes changed, and with 30 days to go before the opening ceremony, we realized that we were going to do something.” Once the lid was lifted, Chief Zhang, who carried the medal case every day, said, “I felt anxious on the days when there were no medals during the competition. Thanks to the many medals, I had happy thoughts for the first time in a long time.”
Jang has been with the athletes since the opening of the Team Korea Paris Platform, a pre-training camp in Fontainebleau, near Paris, on March 12. Jang, who has always been attentive to the athletes training in the athletes’ village, visited the warm-up area to give them a boost before the Games.
“I thought it would be a big boost for me to not just watch the game, but to tell the athletes one more time that they can do it,” Zhang said. It was an 안전놀이터 opportunity to get closer to the athletes before the game by touching their hands and talking to them a little more.”
While all of the medals won by South Korean athletes were meaningful, Jang cited Oh Sang-wook (28, Daejeon Metropolitan Government)’s gold medal in the men’s individual sabre event as his favorite moment of the Games. “He had a very difficult time with injuries during the Olympic preparation,” Zhang said. When he overcame the difficult moment and won the gold medal, he was so happy that he jumped down to the bottom of the stadium while watching the game from the stands,” Jang laughed.
Jang attributed the success of Korean athletes at the Paris Games to “unity across sports. “Since I took over as athletes’ village chief, I told the athletes to greet each other regardless of their sport. Now, the atmosphere of the athletes has improved as they have unspoken support and synergy with each other,” he said. He also sees the “Generation Z rebellion” (those born between the mid-1990s and 2010s) as a positive: “When I played, the generation was passive. Today’s younger generation is active. They think and train autonomously about what they need to do, and they take better care of themselves than we did. They train better and play better,” he analyzed.
Despite the successes of the Paris Olympics, Jang is not without a sobering perspective. “The Olympics have only revitalized Korean sports. “The word ‘revival’ means that it could collapse again at any time,” he said, “so we need to be humble and prepare well for the 2028 Olympics.
Zhang emphasized the need to increase financial support for national athletes and improve training systems to keep up with the times as a way to continue to develop elite sports.
In particular, Zhang addressed the issue of the national badminton team’s training methods, which was raised by Ahn Se-young, saying, “Simply put, the training methods may not be suitable for Generation Z. I’m not suggesting that the existing system should be completely eliminated, but I’m thinking that it should be supplemented and modified to suit the current players,” he said. “I’m going to go back to Korea and look at this issue,” he said, “but we have to approach it carefully. We don’t want to hurt anyone by changing anything,” he urged.