Kye Sun-hui

Korean spelling
Chosŏn'gŭl	계 순희
Revised Romanization	Gye Sunhui
McCune- Reischauer	Kye Sunhŭi
See also : Korean name

Kye Sun-hui (born August 2, 1979 in Pyongyang ) is a former North Korean judoka . With three Olympic medals and four world championship titles, she is one of the most successful judokas of all time.

Career

North Korea had not participated in international championships since 1992 and thus no judoka had qualified for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. The International Judo Federation awarded one of thirteen wildcards to North Korea and the North Korean Federation nominated the internationally unknown Kye Sun-hui. The competitions in the super lightweight, the class up to 48 kilograms, were held on July 26th, a week before Kye's 17th birthday. In her first competition she defeated Tamara Meijer from the Netherlands by a small score, in the second competition she won over Sarah Nichilo from France . In the fight for the final, she managed her only early victory against the Spaniard Yolanda Soler . In the final against Ryōko Tamura , who had been unbeaten for three years , Kye Sun-hui won a coca rating.

From 1997 Kye fought in the half-light weight, the weight class up to 52 kilograms. At the Judo World Championships in Paris in 1997 , she reached the finals, where she lost to the French 1996 Olympic champion Marie-Claire Restoux . A month later, Kye won the Asian Championships in Manila. In 1998 she won the Asian Games in Bangkok. In 1999 she defended her title at the Asian Championships in Wenzhou. At the Judo World Championships in Birmingham in 1999 , she received the bronze medal together with Restoux; In the final, the Japanese Noriko Narazaki won against the Cuban Legna Verdecia . In March 2000, Kye won the World Cup in Prague. At the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Kyu won the first round against the American Hillary Wolf through Ippon . In the second fight she had to fight against the Dutch woman Deborah Gravenstijn for the full duration of four minutes. After the Ippon against the Australian Rebecca Sullivan, Kye lost in the fight for the final against Legna Verdecia. In the battle for bronze, Kye then won against the Romanian Ioana Dinea-Aluaş .

At the World Cup in Munich in February 2001, Kye won the lightweight, the weight class up to 57 kilograms. For the Judo World Championships in Munich in 2001 she returned to the light weight division, in the final she defeated the German Raffaella Imbriani and won her first world title. Her last international half-lightweight medal was won by Kye with bronze at the 2002 Asian Games in Busan.

From 2003 Kye finally switched to lightweight. At the Judo World Championships in 2003 in Osaka, she won the final like two years before against a German judoka: Yvonne Bönisch . At the 2004 Olympic Games , Kye met Marcon Bezzina from Malta in the first competition . After victories over the Russian Natalia Jucharewa and the British Sophie Cox , she reached the final with an Ippon against the Cuban Yurisleidy Lupetey , in which Kye met Yvonne Bönisch again. Bönisch won after five minutes by a Yuko rating. With her silver medal, Kye had now won an Olympic medal in three different weight classes.

In the final of the Judo World Championships in Cairo in 2005 , Kye met Yvonne Bönisch again, and Kye won her third world title. Two years later she fought at the Judo World Championships in 2007 against the Spanish Isabel Fernández and won for the fourth time at the world championships. At her last major tournament, the Olympic Games in Beijing , Kye defeated Sabrina Filzmoser from Austria in the first round . In the second fight she lost to the French Barbara Harel and was eliminated from the tournament.

literature

• Volker Kluge : Summer Olympic Games. Chronicle IV. Seoul 1988 – Atlanta 1996 . Sportverlag Berlin 2002 ISBN 3-328-00830-6

Web links

• Kye Sun-hui in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Kye Sun-hui on Judoinside (English)

Footnotes

1. ↑ Volker Kluge: Olympic Summer Games. Chronicle IV. Seoul 1988 – Atlanta 1996 p. 943 note 328
2. ↑ Volker Kluge: Olympic Summer Games. Chronicle IV. Seoul 1988 – Atlanta 1996 p. 759
3. ↑ The entire paragraph up to this point follows the presentation on judoinside.com
4. ↑ Kye Sun-hui in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
5. ↑ The complete paragraph follows the presentation on judoinside.com
6. ↑ The entire paragraph up to this point follows the presentation on judoinside.com
7. ↑ Kye Sun-hui in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
8. ↑ The entire paragraph up to this point follows the presentation on judoinside.com
9. ↑ Kye Sun-hui in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )

Note: This article places the family name before the person's first name. This is the usual order in Korean. Kye is the family name here, Sun-hui is the first name.