Draft Son Gi-jeong

Title	Son Gi-jeong

1차 원고

Marathon gold medalist Sohn Gi-jeong

The marathoner Sohn Gi-jeong (1912~2002) of Korea marked the world’s record of 2 hours, 29 minutes and 19 seconds in marathon at the 11th Olympiade Berlin held on August 9, 1936. Under the Japanese colonial rule, he took part in the Olympics’ marathon as a member of Japanese team, wearing a shirt with the Japanese flag. But he determined to publicize worldwide that he is a Korean by winning the gold medal.

Born athlete, Sohn Gi-jeong won a 5,000-meter race held in Sinuiju in his early teen age, beating numerous adult athletes. Since he took second place in a marathon game in 1932 hosted by the Dong-A Ilbo, a leading daily newspaper, he achieved outstanding results in many marathon games.

Both in the first two marathon games for selecting members of national team for the Olympiade Berlin 1936 held in March 1935 and November 1935 respectively in Tokyo, he won the race by recording 2 hours, 26 minutes and 14 seconds. In the third game for the same purpose held in May 1936, he took the second place next to Nam Seung-ryong, another Korean athlete. But the Japanese authority did not want to recognize this fact, and it held the final selection game in Berlin prior to the Olympics, but Sohn and Nam took the first and second place again.

Being an unknown new athlete, Sohn Gi-jeong beat front-runners, such as Jabella from Argentine who was the gold medalist at the 10th Olympiade Los Angeles, Harper from the United Kingdom and Tamira(타미라) from Finland. But when the Japanese flag was raised and Japan’s national anthem was played at the awards ceremony, he looked gloomy as he was honored with Japanese flag and anthem instead of those of Korea.

In its article on Sohn’s gold medal receiving ceremony dated August 25, 1936, the Dong-A Ilbo intentionally erased Japanese flag from his picture, resulting in forced suspension of its publication for about 9 months. Along with the gold medal, he was awarded with an ancient Greek bronze helmet as a supplementary prize, but it was not given to him at that time and had been kept by German Olympic Organizing Committee until it was delivered to Sohn in 1986. As he donated it to the Korean government in 1994, the helmet is now housed in the National Museum of Korea.