Jong Song-ok

Korean spelling
Chosŏn'gŭl	정성옥
Revised Romanization	Jeong Seong-ok
McCune- Reischauer	Chŏng Sŏng-ok
See also : Korean name

Jong Song-ok

Jong Song-ok (born August 18, 1974 in Haeju ) is a North Korean marathon runner .

Jong started her career in 1995 with a time of 2:29:57 hours. In 1996 it improved to 2:29:54 hours and finished twentieth in the 1996 Olympic Games in 2:35:31 hours. In 1998 she finished third in the Beijing Marathon .

While she was largely unknown, she was not inexperienced when she competed at the 1999 World Championships in Seville. The temperature at the start was 24 ° C. By the time we reached the finish line, the temperature had risen to 32 ° C. In this heat run, the Ethiopian Fatuma Roba took the lead around ten kilometers from the finish and quickly had a considerable lead. But Jong and the Japanese Ari Ichihashi fought their way up and took the lead just before the 40 km mark. The two Asians stayed next to each other until the home stretch, and ultimately the North Korean won with a national record of 2:26:59 hours, three seconds ahead of the Japanese. Third place went to Romanian Lidia Șimon ahead of Fatuma Roba. Jong was the first athletics world champion from North Korea.

Jong is a trained sports teacher and has a son with her husband, Kim Jung-won , the current national marathon record holder . She is 1.54 m tall and weighs 47 kg.

literature

• Peter Matthews (Ed.): Athletics 2000. Surbiton 2000, ISBN 1-899807-07-1

Web links

• Jong Song-ok in the database of World Athletics (English)

Note: This article places the family name before the person's first name. This is the usual order in Korean. Jong is the family name here, Song-ok is the first name.