National Athletes to Gather in Gwangju

The 88th National Sports Festival will open on October 8 starting with an opening ceremony at six o’clock in the evening at Gwangju World Cup Stadium. The sporting event will last for a week.

The festival will include 24,518 participants (6,258 staff members, 18,260 athletes) from 16 cities and provinces, along with 16 foreign delegations. The athletes will compete each other at 66 stadiums in 41 different events.

Many spectators are expected to come to see the star athletes. Park Tae-hwan (Seoul) who earned a gold medal at the World Swimming Championships will participate in the 100m and 200m freestyle, 400m medley relay, and the 400m and 800 freestyle relays.

As Park is trying to focus on improving his skills to prepare for the Beijing Olympics Games next year, he will likely exert more effort in the 200m free style (October 11) and 100m free style (October 13). In the previous National Sports Festival, Park won five medals.

Jang Mi-ran (Gyeonggi), who won three times in the World Weightlifting Championships, will also be at Gwangju. She will participate at the 75kg weight class to display her power.

Lee Hyeong-taek (Busan), who was able to advance to the 16th round at Davis Cup for the first time in 20 years as a Korean player, will play in the team competition. Last year, he won at both men’s singles and doubles.

Lee Won-hui, a renowned judo star who stopped competing, will come back to show his skills. Lee, after suffering from a chronic ankle injury, went under the knife in April. Since then, he has been working to recover from the surgery. At the festival, he will participate in the 81kg weight class, not his usual 73kg weight class.

hic@donga.com