The Paris stage opened in heaven… “Mom, please pray more in heaven”｜Dong-A Ilbo

(2024 Paris Olympics)
Li Hanbitt participates in dramatic 62kg wrestling class
The North Korean athlete withdrew 8 days before the competition and lost the right to participate… I tried to sweat and mobilize my senses as much as possible.
It is so flexible that it is called an octopus… Coach: “We will improve game by game”

Eight days before the competition, I received a call that I could participate in the Olympics. Ever since I started wrestling in my first year of high school, my dream of becoming an Olympic athlete suddenly came true. But there was not even enough time to sigh. He hurriedly prepared to go abroad and boarded a plane to Paris four days before the competition. This is the story of Lee Han-bit (30), the only Korean female wrestler participating in the Paris Olympics.

Lee Han-bit will compete in the women’s freestyle 62kg wrestling event at the Paris Olympics on July 9. This is the first time a Korean female wrestler has competed in the Olympics in 12 years, following Kim Hyung-joo (48kg) and Uhm Ji-eun (55kg) at the 2012 London Olympics. Lee Han-bit is the fourth Korean athlete to compete in the Olympics since women’s wrestling was included as an official event at the 2004 Athens Olympics.

Lee Hanbit made a dramatic appearance on the Olympic stage. At the Paris Olympics held in Kyrgyzstan in April this year, Lee Hanbit lost in the Asian quarterfinals and did not get the Olympic ticket of the top two players. Is it because I have many regrets? After the Asian quarterfinals, Lee Hanbit suffered symptoms of partial paralysis. In the end, his dream of participating in the Olympics seemed to be shattered because he could not participate in the World Quarterfinals in May. However, before the Paris Olympics, North Korean player Moon Hyun-kyung gave up his qualification and Lee Hanbit entered the Olympics as the runner-up of the next session.

Lee Hanbit has loved various sports since he was a child with his two younger brothers who are football players. With the recommendation of his middle school teacher, he entered Leela Arts High School in Seoul, which has a women’s wrestling team. Although he started wrestling in his first year of high school, it was too late, but his talent and competitive spirit were enough to stand on the podium of the national competition that year. Lee Hanbit’s advantage is that he is good at stealing from the outside and not losing points to the opponent. Among the players, they are called “octopus” and “octopus” because they are flexible and can make the opponent unable to move.

Li Hanbit, who chose to join the business team after graduating from high school due to his family’s financial situation, began to wear the Tai Chi logo to participate in international competitions in 2018. In 2018 and 2021, he won the bronze medal in the Asian Championships (65kg class) and also participated in the Hangzhou Asian Games last year.

The women’s wrestling team coaches Yoo Bae-hee and Lee Han-bit, who arrived in Paris on the 5th, are concentrating on improving their match feeling. Since missing out on the Olympic ticket, Lee Han-bit has been training with his team instead of at the Jincheon training center. After arriving in Paris, I trained in the facilities provided by the Athletes’ Village, and on the 7th, I visited the Olympic Stadium for the first time. Lee Han-bit, who lost his mother at a young age, strengthened his determination before his first Olympic Games, saying, “Mom, please see me in heaven and pray a lot.” Coach Yoo also expressed his determination, saying, “I am grateful that this is a chance given to me by God, and I will move forward one game at a time.”

In fact, it was not easy for Lee Hanbit to win a medal. But he said he would not back down easily for the sake of Korean wrestling, which is in crisis. Wrestling once won the first Olympic gold medal for South Korea (Yang Zhengmo won the gold medal at the 1976 Montreal Olympics), but it is losing its past reputation and at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, it was “medal-free” for the first time in 45 years. In this year’s Paris competition, Lee Seung-chan (29) in the men’s Greco-Roman 130kg class and Kim Seung-jun (30) in the 97kg class ended up with a winless result.

Paris = Reporter Kang Hong-gu Windup@donga.com