Sang Chun Lee

Sang Chun Lee
Personal details
birthday	January 15, 1954
date of death	October 19, 2004
nationality	/
Achievements Unless otherwise stated, the information relates to the “three cushion” discipline.
Maximum series (HS): 28
Best Game: 12,500 (50 points in 4 recordings)

Sang Chun Lee (Korean: Lee Sang-chun , born January 15, 1954 in South Korea , † October 19, 2004 in South Korea) was one of the world's best billiards players in three cushion / carom.

Life

Lee and Christian Rudolph playing off the kick-off in the round of 16 of the three-cushion World Cup 1998/5 in Corfu.

He started his career in Korea at a young age and became the Korean three-cushion champion for the first time in 1978. He remained the undisputed number 1 in Korea until 1986, winning the Korean title 10 times in a row. During this time he began to popularize the three-cushion sport in Korea not only as a player but also as the owner of billiard halls. His position as a top player in Korea was undisputed, but he remained unknown internationally. In 1987 he decided to emigrate to the USA and to realize his dream there: “ making billiards beautiful in America! ”

In 1989 he met his wife, married her and had a daughter (Olivia). With the help of his family and friends, he founded his first billiard room (Sang Lee Billiards) in Queens. In 1990 he received his license to play for national and international championships and immediately won the US three-cushion title, which he was able to defend for the following 11 years. He became three-cushion world champion in the 2003 season in 1994 (the final tournament took place in 2004). He used his increasing popularity and his tournament winnings to continue working on his dream and initiated several tournament series (Sang Lee International Tournaments). He often spent more time organizing tournaments and promoting the sport than his own game. Nevertheless, he remained one of the world's best three-cushion players and only missed the 1999 World Cup title by a very thin margin. In 2000, he and his friend Michael Kang opened the Carom-Café Billiards in New York, which with around 2,700 m² is one of the largest pure carom billiard halls in the world. Here, too, he spent his time organizing national and international tournaments.

In 2003 he returned to his native Korea and used his popularity to give his sport in his homeland new impetus. He organized tournaments, founded a players' association and won sponsorships in order to better promote young players. In 2004 he was elected President of the Korean Billiards Association and was thus able to further promote the sport politically. At that time he was diagnosed with stomach cancer , from which he died in October 2004.

Sang Lee was due to his experience in the Korean three-cushion, in which in the 1980s a three-cushion, which was played as an opening act, earned 2 points, as arguably the best opening act in the world. The New York Times referred to Lee as the " Michael Jordan of billiards".

Honors / memorial tournament

• The Sang Lee International Open has been held in his memory since 2005 .
• In 2007 he was inducted into the Hall of Fame of the Billiard Congress of America for his services to the three-cushion sport in the US and Korea .

successes

• BWA three-cushion world cup :
  • Annual overall winner: 1993
  • Individual World Cup:
    • 1991/1, 1992/2, 1993/2, 1994/1, 1999/2
    • 1991/1, 1992/6, 1996/6, 1999/4
    • 1993/1, 1994/4, 1995/6, 1998/1, 1999/1, 1999/5
• Three Cushion Pan American Championships : 1993
• 10 × Korean three-cushion champion in a row (1978–1987)
• American Three Cushion Championship : 1990–2001 2002

Unconfirmed records

• Highest series: 28 (details are missing, not officially named by the UMB! → List of records in three-cushion )
• Best Game / ED: 12,500, (40 points in 4 shots)

Swell:

Web links

Commons : Sang Chun Lee  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Homepage of the Sang Lee International Open with information about Sang Lee
• Homepage of the Carom-Cafe
• Sang Lee: 3-Cushion Billiards Run of 14 (w / full table masse shot) against Sayginer on YouTube

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Hall of Fame Inductees: 2002-2010. Billiards Congress of America, 2007, archived from the original on July 13, 2018 ; accessed on October 21, 2019 (English).  
2. ↑ Caitlin Lovinger: They're Sort of Like Mike . New York Times , January 17, 1999.

Korean spelling
Hangeul	이상천
Revised Romanization	I sang-cheon
McCune- Reischauer	I Sangchon
See also : Korean name