Top 10 sports stories of 2008

Top 10 sports stories of 2008 December 31, 2008

Korean baseball players won one of 13 gold medals in the Beijing Olympics for Korea.By Kim Kyung-bin It’s that time of the year again, when year-end awards and lists abound. The JoongAng Daily’s sports section hops on the bandwagon with the top 10 sports stories of the year 2008, plus its choices for athlete, coach and team of the year. 1.Korea enjoys its best Olympics ever, winning 13 gold medals and finishing seventh In Olympic years, picking sports news items becomes much easier. And with Korea exceeding expectations to win 13 gold medals in Beijing, this was a particularly easy choice. Male judoka Choi Min-ho won the nation’s first gold on the first day of competition, and the rest was history. Female archers picked up their seventh straight Olympic gold in the team competition. Korea sent four athletes to compete in taekwondo, the maximum number for each nation, and they brought home four gold medals. Pistol shooter Jin Jong-oh fought off demons from the 2004 Athens Olympics and won the elusive gold. But the truly historic medal was... 2.Park Tae-hwan wins Korea’s first swimming gold medal and adds a silver The 19-year-old swimmer made history by winning the men’s 400-meter freestyle race, becoming the first Korean to win an Olympic swimming medal of any color. He also grabbed silver in the 200-meter freestyle, behind none other than Michael Phelps, who ended up with a record eight gold medals in Beijing. The gold medal transformed Park from a swimming star into a national icon. A tantalizing prospect: Park will only be 23 by the 2012 London Olympics and could go up against Phelps once again. 3.Korean baseball team wins the Olympic gold medal This was a memorable year for Korean baseball, but not always for the right reasons thanks to some off-field controversies. But the definitive highlight of the year for the sport was the improbable gold medal performance by the national team. Korea won all nine games it played, and in the dramatic final against powerhouse Cuba, Korea clinched the gold on a game-ending double play after Cuba had loaded the bases. 4.Figure Skater Kim Yu-na enjoys another banner year: World Championship bronze, two Grand Prix titles and silver at Grand Prix Final Among individual Korean athletes, only Kim can match or surpass Park in popularity polls. Kim has more than backed up her celebrity with her on-ice performance this year. She opened the year with her second straight world championship bronze in March and cruised to two Grand Prix titles in fall to advance to the Grand Prix Final in December in Korea. Kim settled for second, but she’s still first in the hearts of her many devoted fans. Kim Yu-na 5.Golfer Shin Ji-yai begins her assault on the golf world, winning 11 times worldwide Shin won everywhere she played in 2008 - Korea, Japan, Britain and the United States. She is the first non-LPGA Tour member to win three LPGA events in a season, is the youngest champion of the British Women’s Open, and her LPGA earnings would have ranked her in third place. That’s on top of the seven victories she claimed on the Korea LPGA Tour. Shin plans to play the U.S. tour full time in 2009. Think the KLPGA golfers are rejoicing? 6.SK Wyverns repeat as KBO champions For the second straight season, the Wyverns finished first in the regular season and defeated the Doosan Bears in the Korean Series. Under Manager Kim Sung-keun, who is also known as “Baseball God,” the Wyverns have been the most efficient ball club in the league. The key cog in this baseball machine is Kim Kwang-hyun, the 20-year-old lefty who won the MVP after leading the league in wins and strikeouts. 7.Suwon Bluewings win the K-League championship and League Cup, becoming only the fourth team to pull off the double. Shin Ji-yai Suwon started off the season on an 18-game undefeated streak. Despite a midseason hiccup they beat Chunnam for the League Cup title in July. And in the home-and-away championship series against FC Seoul, the Bluewings prevailed by the aggregate score of 3-2. To cap off the memorable year, goalkeeper Lee Woon-jae was named the K-League MVP. 8.Jang Mi-ran sets world records to win the Olympic weightlifting gold Without Jang’s main rival Mu Shuangshuang of China - each nation could only send a limited number of lifters - the question was by how much Jang would win gold in the women’s +75-kilogram division. And Jang dusted her competition, lifting 140 kilograms in snatch and 186 kilograms in clean and jerk for 326 total, all world records. The silver medal winner, Olha Korobka of Ukraine, had only 277 kilograms in total. 9.Kim Joo-sung helps the Dongbu Promy to the Korean Basketball League title and wins MVP honors in the regular season, all-star game and postseason Kim guided the Promy to their third KBL championship this decade and he’s been an integral part in each one. The Promy beat the Samsung Thunders in five games in the final; Kim poured in 25.6 points per game, more than 11 points higher than his season average. Kim was the unanimous choice for playoff MVP. 10.Moon Dae-sung becomes the first Asian voted to the International Olympic Committee’s Athletes’ Commission Moon Dae-sung During the Beijing Olympics, Moon Dae-sung, former Olympic gold medalist in taekwondo, was voted to the Athletes’ Commission. Moon finished first among 31 candidates and joined former Samsung Group Chairman Lee Kun-hee as one of only two Koreans on the IOC. The Athletes’ Commission is composed of 19 members and 15 will have the same rights as other IOC members, including a vote on the choice of Olympics hosts and events. Athlete of the Year: Park Tae-hwan, swimming With all due respect to other fine athletes, no other single athlete had an accomplishment as significant as Park this year. Before he won the 400-meter freestyle gold medal, no Korean swimmer had even won a medal at the Olympics. He also won silver in the 200-meter free, and was so at ease with himself afterward that he joked he was disappointed not to hear the national anthem after getting silver. And the best part about his career is this: at 19, Park likely hasn’t hit his prime yet and will continue to improve. Cha Bum-kun Honorable mentions: Kim Kwang-hyun, baseball; Kim Yu-na, figure skating Coach of the Year: Cha Bum-kun, football Cha’s Suwon Bluewings could have fielded a second team with injured players. When he ran out of regulars, Cha summoned bench warmers like Bae Ki-jong, Hong Soon-hak and Choi Sung-hwan and rode these unsung heroes to the League Cup and the K-League championship. A legend in his playing days, Cha didn’t previously warm up to players who couldn’t live up to his lofty expectations. But he mellowed this year and became more of a players’ coach. And he couldn’t have asked for better results. Honorable mentions: Kim Kyung-moon, Korean baseball team; Kim Sung-keun, SK Wyverns Team of the Year: National baseball team, Olympic gold medal winners As sports feats go, Korea’s winning the Beijing Olympics baseball gold medal was considered about as likely as Lindsay Lohan winning an Oscar. Korea defied all odds: it defeated regional rival Japan twice (the latter win in the semifinal), and overcame Cuba 3-2 in the thrilling gold medal match. It was certainly vindication for Korea, which didn’t even make it out of the Asian qualification for the 2004 Athens Olympics.