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[스포츠뉴스]Flag-bearer Park Ji-woo hoping luck is finally on her side in Milan

온카뱅크관리자

2026-02-01 20:00:00

<div class="ab_photo photo_center ab_zoom">  <div class="image">   <span class="end_photo_org"><img src="https://imgnews.pstatic.net/image/640/2026/02/01/0000083858_001_20260201200108751.jpg" alt="" /><em class="img_desc">Speed skater Park Ji-woo, a rising prospect and Team Korea flag bearer, prepares for the Olympics by cycling five hours a day with male athletes. [700 Creators]</em></span>   <span class="mask"></span>  </div>  </div>    <br> Park Ji-woo thinks she is not the most glamorous athlete at the Olympics, and she says she's fine with that. She will carry the flag anyway.  <br>    <br> Chosen as one of Korea’s flag bearers for the opening ceremony of the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026, the 28-year-old speed skater will walk into San Siro Stadium on Feb. 7 alongside figure skater Cha Jun-hwan.   <br><br>“It’s an honor,” Park said. “Cha Jun-hwan is prettier than I am, so I’ll lean on my personality.”   <br>    <br> Park follows a recent Korean tradition. At the Beijing Winter Olympics four years ago, short track skaters Kwak Yoon-gi and Kim A-rang served as flag bearers and later won silver medals in the men’s and women’s relays, respectively. Expectations are again high, this time for Park, who is competing in the mass start and the 1,500 meters.  <br>    <br> Lee Seung-hoon, a speed skating commentator, recently told Lee Soo-kyung, president of the Korea Skating Union, that Park’s mass start form “has really taken off lately” and that “it’s OK to be excited.” Park won bronze in the mass start at a World Cup meet in December 2025. At a World Cup event the month before, in November of last year, she broke a Korean record in the women’s 1,500 meters that had stood for 12 years.  <br>    <br> Park’s life in speed skating is, in her own words, marked by relentless bad luck. Even so, she always finds a way back and never loses her sense of gratitude. In interviews she grumbles that her life is “not the kind you see often at the rink,” but she keeps smiling.  <br>    <br> It is Park who skated between Kim Bo-reum and Noh Seon-young in the quarterfinal of the women’s team pursuit at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, a race that sparked nationwide controversy over alleged “ostracism skating.” Kim, and Park as well, who were teenagers at the time, become targets of public backlash. Later, after investigators concluded there was no deliberate ostracism, public opinion shifted and Park was cleared of wrongdoing.  <br>    <br> What could have become a lasting rift did not. Park remains close with Kim. Park says she even had brunch with Kim a few days earlier and received feedback on race strategy. In the mass start, skaters battle for position without fixed lanes or set places, much like short track.  <br>    <br> <div class="ab_photo photo_center ab_zoom">  <div class="image">   <span class="end_photo_org"><img src="https://imgnews.pstatic.net/image/640/2026/02/01/0000083858_002_20260201200110004.jpg" alt="" /><em class="img_desc">From left: Noh Seon-young, Park Ji-woo and Kim Bo-reum skate in the women’s team pursuit in 2018. [JOONGANG ILBO]</em></span>   <span class="mask"></span>  </div>  </div>    <br> That is why the event is often described as “short track on a speed skating rink.” Park is strong on the straights but struggles in the corners, so she has sought advice from Kim, who has short track experience.  <br>    <br> Park competed in the mass start at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, but she fell for the first time in an international event and was eliminated in the semifinals. Years of effort appeared to vanish in an instant, but she drew applause after helping up a Russian skater she tripped.  <br>    <br> Two months ago, she also missed a golden chance at victory at a World Cup mass start because of an officiating error. Park celebrated, thinking she crossed first, but an official miscounted the laps and rings the bell for the final lap at the wrong time, pushing her down the standings. Park still laughs it off, saying it may have meant things are going to get even better.  <br>    <br> Asked how she wants to be remembered, Park said she has had many ups and downs but wants to be remembered as a skater who blooms into a pretty flower.  <br>    <br> She added that she is not naturally talented and that speed skating rewards effort. She said she trains until her legs feel like they are going to burst and that she reaches this point by refusing to give up. For Park, the Olympics are the stage where she can show her 10 years as a national team member.  <br>    <br> <div class="ab_photo photo_center ab_zoom">  <div class="image">   <span class="end_photo_org"><img src="https://imgnews.pstatic.net/image/640/2026/02/01/0000083858_003_20260201200110101.jpg" alt="" /><em class="img_desc">Speed skater Kim Min-sun, right, answers reporters’ questions while skater Park Ji-woo, laughs along at the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics D-30 media day at the Jincheon National Training Center in North Chungcheong on Jan. 7. Skater Park Ji-woo, Kim's best friend, laughs in the right.  [YONHAP]</em></span>   <span class="mask"></span>  </div>  </div>    <br> Park trained relentlessly, including five-hour cycling sessions in Yangyang, Gangwon, with athletes such as Chung Jae-won, a men’s mass start national team skater.  <br>    <br> In October 2025, Park and her close friend Kim Min-sun, 27, a 500-meter national team sprinter, ordered matching friendship necklaces shaped like Olympic rings at a shop in Jongno District, central Seoul.  <br>    <br> Park said the jeweler told them they learned their jewelry-making technique in Milan, prompting her to joke that it must be destiny. Kim chose gold, while Park chose white gold. Park said she hoped both of them will win medals, smiling to the end.  <br><br><i>This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.</i>

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