KOREA – Sung named new Head Coach

Sung Han Kook has been named as the new Head Coach of the Korean National Badminton Team, replacing Kim Joong Soo, who held the post for 10 years.

Sung’s duties at the helm of the national team will begin on New Year’s Day, 2011 and he will skipper the team through the crucial qualifying period for the 2012 London Olympic Games.  A singles specialist during the 1980s, Sung has since spent more than 10 years on the national team coaching staff, during which Korea won a gold and a silver in Olympic singles events, along with numerous other international titles and medals.  He has also been coach to the Daekyo professional team since its founding in 1995.   The Daekyo team is, of course, sponsored by the company of the same name, which was founded by Badminton World Federation President Kang Young Joong, and has included such names as Bang Soo Hyun, Jun Jae Youn, and Ra Kyung Min among its alumnae, as well as currently being home to Hwang Yu Mi and Ha Jung Eun.

Of late, however, another of Sung’s claims to fame has been as head of Korea’s first badminton household (see related article here).  His daughter, Sung Ji Hyun is one of Korea’s key hopes in women’s singles, having reached the final of the Korea Open last January, while Sung’s wife Kim Yunja won All England titles in both singles and doubles and is the head coach of Korea’s top university team, where her daughter plays, along with other young aces such as Kim Moon Hi, Shin Baek Cheol, and Yoo Hyun Young.

“During training, since the team is divided up with individual coaches for each discipline, there won’t be that many cases where Ji Hyun will have to deal with me directly,” Sung told the Yonhap News Agency.

“For the Olympics, we intend to maintain the concentration on our traditional strengths and to shore up those disciplines where we have been traditionally weaker,” Sung said of his plans for the national team.