Lee Seung-hoon

	Lee Seung-hoon
nation	South Korea
birthday	March 6, 1988
place of birth	Seoul , South Korea
Career
discipline	Speed skating
status	active
Medal table
winter Olympics
Individual distance world championships
Individual Distance Asian Championships
	Placements in the speed skating world cup
Debut in the World Cup	November 7, 2009
World Cup victories	11 (including 9 individual wins)
Grand toilet	8. ( 2014/15 )
Total toilet 5000/10000	4. ( 2012/13 )
Total toilet mass start	1. ( 2014/15 , 2016/17 )
	last change: February 24, 2018

Lee Seung-hoon ( Korean 이승훈; born March 6, 1988 in Seoul ) is a South Korean speed skater who was previously active as a short tracker . His biggest success so far was winning the gold medal in the 10,000m at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver when he ran Olympic best. In addition to an Olympic silver medal over 5,000 m, he won three gold medals at the 2010 Asian speed skating championships.

Career

Short track

Lee started shorttracking in elementary school and continued training through high school to university despite financial problems with his parents. He won his first international medal at the Short Track World Championships in Beijing in 2005 , when he won bronze in the 1,500 m and 3,000 m and silver in the 5,000 m relay. Two years later he took part in the Winter Universiade 2007 in Turin and won silver in the 1,000 m and 3,000 m distance as well as the bronze medal in the 1,500 m. He also won the gold medal in the 5,000 meter relay. At the Short Track World Championships in 2008 in Gangneung , South Korea , he won over 3,000 m and again gold in the 5,000-meter relay.

At the Winter Universiade 2009 in Harbin (China) Lee won the gold medal in the 1,000 m, 1,500 m and 3,000 m respectively. After Sung Si-bak , who won five gold medals in 2007, he is the most successful short tracker at a Universiade. He also won the bronze medal with the 5,000 meter relay.

Since there are a lot of short trackers in South Korea, the competition was very fierce, so that Lee was surprisingly not nominated for the South Korean championships in April 2009 despite very good performances in the last competitions. As a result, Lee decided to switch from the short track to speed skating, which is less popular in South Korea. After defeating the favorite Choi Geun-won in a preliminary round, he was accepted into the South Korean national team.

Speed skating

Lee competed in his first major competition in speed skating at the 2010 Asian Individual Distance Championships in Obihiro , Japan , where he won three gold medals in the 1,500, 5,000 and 10,000 m, each with a personal best.

After meeting the Olympic norm, Lee took part in the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. He contested his first competition over 5,000 m, where he won the silver medal in a time of 6: 16.95 minutes behind the Dutchman Sven Kramer . This made Lee the third South Korean speed skater to achieve a medal level at the Olympic Games and the first Asian to win an Olympic medal over a long distance.

Lee Seung-hoon ran the 10,000 m in the fifth of eight pairs with a time of 12: 58.55 minutes, an Olympic record. In the last pair, the Dutchman Sven Kramer competed against the Russian Iwan Skobrew and led by more than four seconds in the middle of the race. At the seven-kilometer mark, however, Kramer was put in the wrong lane by his trainer and thus later disqualified by the jury, although he had once again undercut Lee's best time at the finish. Then the South Korean was awarded the gold medal.

At the seventh Asian Winter Games in Astana , Lee Seung-hoon won gold medals in the 5,000m and 10,000m as well as gold in the mass start. In the season, the South Korean team was beaten by three hundredths by Japan , which set a new Asian record.

At the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi , he was again qualified over 5,000 m and 10,000 m, but could not repeat his successes from Vancouver. Over 10,000 m he reached fourth place with a time of 13: 11.68 min, before finally winning the silver medal in the team pursuit together with Kim Cheol-min and Joo Hyong-jun . The trio had already won the same medal at the 2013 World Individual Distance Championships .

At the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang , he won the gold medal in the first ever mass start race at the Olympics, having previously won silver in the team pursuit.

Personal best

Lee Seung-hoon currently has the following personal bests in speed skating (as of February 23, 2018):

500 m: 36.34 s ( Calgary , Canada, March 8, 2015)
1,000 m: 1: 23.90 min ( Seoul , South Korea, December 1, 2001)
1,500 m: 1: 44.83 min (Calgary, December 3, 2017)
3,000 m: 3: 39.43 min (Calgary, August 12, 2012)
5,000 m: 6:07:04 min (Calgary, November 10, 2013)
10.00 m: 12: 55.54 min (Gangwon, South Korea, February 15, 2018)

Web links

Profile of Lee Seung-hoon on speedskatingnews.info
Lee Seung-hoon in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
Profile on the ISU website (English)

Individual evidence

^ The Korea Times: Lee Seung-hoon Becomes Triple Gold Medalist , February 24, 2009
↑ Brief information about Lee Seung-hoon at Reuters
↑ The Korea Times: Lee Seung-hoon Surprises With 5,000-Meter Silver Medal , February 15, 2010
↑ Der Spiegel : Coach sends Holland's super speed skaters down the wrong track , February 24, 2010
↑ Lee Seung-hoon in the SpeedSkatingBase

personal data
SURNAME	Lee, Seung-hoon
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	이승훈 (Korean)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	South Korean speed skater
DATE OF BIRTH	March 6, 1988
PLACE OF BIRTH	Seoul

[1] The Korea Times: Lee Seung-hoon Becomes Triple Gold Medalist , February 24, 2009

[2] Brief information about Lee Seung-hoon at Reuters

[3] The Korea Times: Lee Seung-hoon Surprises With 5,000-Meter Silver Medal , February 15, 2010

[4] Der Spiegel : Coach sends Holland's super speed skaters down the wrong track , February 24, 2010

[5] Lee Seung-hoon in the SpeedSkatingBase