Kim and Bae dream of golden future for Korea | 2006/11/11

Nagoya, Japan, November 11, 2006: The present is not too good for Korea, but the future is looking distinctly bright.

 

Especially when their squad at the 2006 FIVB World Championships includes two players with dreams of winning a gold medal at the Olympic Games -- in London in 2012!

 

By that time, Kim Yeon-Koung will be only 24 years old, and her close friend and former school mate Bae Yoo-Na will be 22. At 18 and 16, respectively, Kim and Bae are already two of the top young players in Asia, and played together at the FIVB Girls' Under-18 World Championship in Macau, China, last year.

 

"I think in another two or three years the Korean team will be very strong again," says the 1.88-metre Kim, who admits she is only 70 per cent fit here after surgery on her right knee in May.

 

"I think it will be another three or four years," chips in the 1.80-metre Bae, who still has one more year as a student at Hanil Women's High School in Suwon, near the capital Seoul.

 

"We watched the Athens Olympics at home on TV and now we want to play in the Beijing Olympics in 2008. It will be our first experience of playing in the Olympics, and our ambition is to win the gold medal at the next Olympics."

 

Kim and Bae are among five players in Korea's 12-strong squad from Hanil Women's High School; the other three are sisters Han Yoo-Mi and Han Song-Yi, and left-handed spiker Hwang Youn-Joo.

 

They say it is just a coincidence that the squad includes five players from the same high school, and that Hanil is not a specialised volleyball centre drawing talented young players from around Korea.

 

They both took up the sport at 10 years old, and became friends when Bae started two years after Kim at the same elementary school.

 

Bae's short-term ambition is to follow Kim to the Heungkuk Life Insurance Company volleyball team once her school days are over, but they have more distant targets, too.

 

It seems that Kim and Bae are following a similar path in life -- and, who knows, one that may lead to gold in London in six years' time.

 

If not, maybe even in 2016. After all, they would still have time.

 

www.fivb.org/EN/volleyball/competitions/Worldchampionships/2006/press/viewPressDB.asp?No=11995