Today Oldest Olympians is continuing its look into mystery competitors from the 1948 London Olympics for whom we lack both a date of birth and confirmation as to whether they are alive or deceased. Given the time that has passed, nearly all of these Olympians would be at least 90 years old, but there is a possibility that some are still alive. Today we wanted to present the second part of our look at Korean competitors who meet this description.
(Choi Hang-Gi)
Five of the remaining competitors took part in the weightlifting tournament in London. Of them, Lee Gyu-Hyeok got the closest to the podium when he finished fourth in the bantamweight division. Na Si-Yun, meanwhile, would go on to reach the podium at a different major international tournament, taking silver as middleweight at the 1954 Asian Games, after having placed seventh as a lightweight in London. Lee Yeong-Hwan, who was 16th as a lightweight in 1948, also took silver at the 1954 Asian Games, but as a heavyweight. Rounding out the list, Park Dong-Uk, whose name is also seen as Pak Dong-Uk, was 10th as a bantamweight, while Choi Hang-Gi competed in the featherweight category, but did not record a mark in the military press portion and thus did not complete the event. Aside from the details mentioned above, we know nothing about the lives of any of these participants.
The rest of our athletes were all freestyle wrestlers. The most successful was Kim Seok-Yeong, who competed as a lightweight and was eliminated in round four. Kim Kuk-Fan was eliminated in round two of the featherweight division, while Han Sang-Ryong survived to round three in the bantamweight category, but only by virtue of a bye in the first round. As with the weightlifters, we do not have any biographical details on these competitors.
That addresses our Korean Olympic mysteries from 1948, which leaves us with only one more nation to cover from that tournament: Egypt. Since this is our area of specialty, we will be treating those entries with extra attention, and will start publishing them in the near future. We hope that you will join us!