Milan: South Korea claimed two stunning medals in sliding sports on home soil at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics. Yun Sung-bin captured the men's skeleton title for the country's first Olympic medal in any sliding event, and the four-man team piloted by Won Yun-jong won the silver medal later on -- the first and so far the only bobsleigh medal by an Asian country in Winter Games history, dating to 1924. South Korea was shut out of medals four years later in Beijing, and now at the Milan-Cortina Games, a new generation of sliders will try to usher in a new era for the country.
According to Yonhap News Agency, Jung Seung-gi has the best shot at succeeding Yun as an Olympic skeleton medalist after overcoming a career-threatening injury. Jung outperformed Yun in Beijing by finishing in 10th place, two spots ahead of the defending champion, and began enjoying more international success. He claimed the bronze medal at the 2023 world championships and picked up three silver medals and one bronze medal during the 2022-2023 International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation (IBSF) World Cup season, too. Then Jung captured his first career World Cup title during the 2023-2024 season, along with a silver and a bronze.
In October 2024, Jung hurt his back during a weight training session, an injury so severe that doctors told Jung he may never walk again. But the resilient athlete bounced back and returned to competition in February 2025. Then in December 2025, Jung won a World Cup bronze medal in Norway, his first World Cup podium finish since January 2024. In six World Cup races this season, Jung has had four top-five finishes, while ranking sixth once and ninth once. Cortina Sliding Centre, which will host the Olympic races, held the World Cup season opener in November and Jung placed fifth there. Sliders each had two runs, with the combined times determining the final standings, and Jung posted the second-fastest time in the opening run with 56.84 seconds, before ranking only 15th in the next run with 57.28 seconds. Still, Jung said afterward he felt comfortable there and enjoyed racing down the track.
The four-man bobsleigh team led by Kim Jin-su also had plenty of fun at Cortina Sliding Centre, where Kim, his pushmen Kim Sun-wook and Kim Hyeong-geun, and brakeman Lee Geon-u won bronze -- South Korea's very first World Cup medal in the four-man event. At the same World Cup, Kim Jin-su and Kim Hyeong-geun finished fourth in the two-man race. Kim Jin-su was Won's brakeman at the 2022 Beijing Winter Games and took over as the pilot following Won's retirement. The former track athlete offers a strong combination of speed, power and athleticism, which allowed him to find almost instant success in the new role. Kim won a World Cup bronze in his debut as the pilot in February 2024 and posted several top-10 finishes in both the two-man and four-man races in the 2024-2025 season.
This season, both the two-man and the four-man teams have hovered around the top five since the Cortina event, with Germany being the dominant force in both. In the two-man event, the team led by Johannes Lochner won six of the seven World Cup races, with the other title going to another German team, piloted by Francesco Friedrich. Lochner led his four-man team to three gold medals and four silver medals in the four-man competition. Two German teams split the four remaining gold medals -- two each by Friedrich's team and Adam Ammour's team. At the 2022 Olympics, Friedrich swept up the two-man and the four-man gold medals, while Lochner's teams finished with silver medals in both.