Skater Distraught After Placing 5th

Excessive confidence, based on the frilly expression, “the best,” to which she was so used to, might have held her back. The most popular inline skater of Korea shed tears as the she heard the announcement that eliminated her from the race as she had three laps to go.

This was the scene around “charming” inline skate star Kuck Chae-yi (19, Anyang City). In the university level women’s 15,000m elimination race of the 87th National Sports Festival held at Gimcheon Inline Roller Stadium located at Gimcheon City, North Gyeongsang Province on October 18, Kuck ended up only fifth. In this kind of race, circulating the 200m-long track for 75 laps, players are supposed to be knocked out one by one until the last three are decided. She was eliminated with three laps to go, while she was skating fifth.

She has been recently on an upturn, winning a silver medal in the same type of race during the Anyang world senior championships held last month, and then taking double crowns from the Asia senior championships held at Taiwan later in the same month. It might have wounded her pride.

“I was careless. I just thought that someone was behind me. I should take it as another lesson.” Although she left the stadium sobbing, after a few hours, she was smiling again showing a clenched fist. “It seems to be god’s revelation telling me to exert myself more.”

As a matter of fact, Kuck had no time for rest after finishing two international competitions. She headed directly to Gimcheon and prepared for the National Sports Festival. Even though she concentrated on her training so intensively that she left her cell phone at home, she confessed that she was starting to face problems with her stamina.

In the race concluded after her elimination, her colleagues in the national team, Kim Hye-mi (Andong City), Lee Ni-na (Geumcheon District, Seoul), and Lee Yu-mi (Cheongju City) won the gold, silver and bronze medals respectively. In the 300m time-trial event, another promising inline youngster Lim Jin-seon (18, Dongan High School) set the first new Korean record of the National Sports Festival with 27.378 seconds.

Another Korean record was broken in swimming. In the final race of men’s 400m swimming, Yun Yeong-jung (Korea University) marked 3:07:00, which hauled the previous Korean record held by himself for more than a second, 3:08:41.