Many players have had a dream of playing professional sport, and many have found themselves in the position of having to sign to play for the team they support’s arch rivals.
When it has come to international representation, some players have been forced to choose between nations due to their parents nationalities, or where they were born. Others have gone back through their family tree to find a link to make them eligible to play for a country!
Imagine if you were forced to represent a country to which you felt you had no links.
Sohn Kee Chung was born in 1912 in what is today known as Shinju in North Korea. At the time of his birth Korea was under Japanese rule, so the city was called Yeng Byen City, in Heian-hokudō, Chōsen.
In 1910 the Minister of War of Japan completed his mission which was to annexe Korea, – which had been a protectorate of Japan – via the Japan–Korea Treaty of 1910. The treaty saw His Majesty the Emperor of Korea concede completely his entire sovereignty over the whole Korean territory to His Majesty the Emperor of Japan.
This period has become known as the Military Police Reign Era (1910–19). During these times the Police had the authority to rule the entire country. Japan controlled the media, the law, as well as the government by way of physical power and regulations. The Japanese also enforced a policy of supressing Korean culture, only Japanese was taught in the schools and Koreans were forced to use Japanese names.
Sohn Kee Chung would defy that edict by learning Korean in secret.
In school he started to show a talent for running. He started racing against friends on bicycles just for the sheer joy and competitiveness. However once his teachers recognised his talent he was sent to study in Seoul.
There he was coached by Lee Sun-il, who like many coaches had his own theories on how to build strength and stamina. He made Sohn run with stones strapped to his back and his pockets filled with sand. In those early days in Seoul he first competed in the 1,500 and 5,000m before switching to the marathon.
He was 17 when he won his first marathon. In the five years, between 1931 and 1936, he would run in 12 races, he never finished outside of the top three and won nine of those events.
In November 1935 he ran the Tokyo marathon in 2hr 26min and 42sec, a world record at the time. His time was five minutes faster than the time that won Argentina’s Juan Carlos Zabala gold medal at the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics.
Sohn was selected by Japan to compete at the Berlin Olympics of 1936. Not only was he to represent the Empire of Japan rather than his homeland, but he had to compete under a Japanese name, Kitei Son.
During his stay in Berlin Sohn said that he tried to tell everyone that they should not think of him as Japanese. When signing his name he would sign in Korean characters, and would often draw a small picture of his country alongside his autograph.
The marathon in Berlin was Sohn’s first international race and he went on to win the gold medal. He ran the 42.1 kilometres (26.2 miles) in 2:29:19.2, breaking the Olympic record. His Korean teammate Nam Sung-yong took the bronze medal. After the race when talking to the media he tried to tell everyone that he was Korean, not Japanese, but those nearby refused to translate what he had said.
In 1988 in an interview he gave prior to the Seoul Olympics hosted by Korea he said of the medal ceremony “When I got up on the stand and the national anthem played and the flags went up – that’s when I felt the sorrow of someone who doesn’t have a country … It was I – a Korean – who won the race. And yet it was Japan’s national anthem and Japan’s flag.”
Everyone knows the image of Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Mexico Olympic Games and their protest for civil rights amongst Blacks in America, but few recall the actions of Sohn and his fellow Korean. As the flag rose they bowed their heads. Both stared at their feet, actions they described later as “silent shame and outrage.”
Sohn hugged a young oak tree that had been given to him as the Gold medal winner tightly to his chest. Few realised the significance of the gesture. In fact it was Nam who made it clear when he explained that he was envious of his team-mate, not because of his medal, but because he had no oak tree to cover up the Japanese flag on his shirt.
The Korean daily newspaper Dong-A Ilbo, which is still in publication courageously carried a photo of Sohn with the Japanese flag scratched out on the front page on 25 August 1936. The Japanese government immediately shut the newspaper down for nine months, arrested and then tortured eight of its journalists.
To add to his woes Sohn was supposed to have received an ancient Corinthian helmet, which was discovered at Olympia, Greece, and was then purchased by a newspaper in Athens to give as an Olympic award. The IOC in its wisdom believed that presenting such a valuable gift to a runner would violate its amateur rules which were in place at the time. So the helmet was placed in a Berlin museum. It remained there for fifty years until finally in 1986 it was presented to Sohn. It is now in a the National Museum of Korea.
After the Second Word war, Sohn became the head coach of the Korean marathon team. Fourteen years after his success in Berlin, and after Korea had been liberated from Japan, and then occupied by the US and the Soviet Union, Sohn led a team of South Korean runners that were the first athletes ever to wear the Korean flag on their kit. They would do him and their nation proud claiming a clean sweep in the 1950 Boston marathon. Ki-Yong Ham, despite walking four times in the final four miles was the winner by two minutes from Kil Yoon Song, who was four minutes ahead of Run Chi Choi.
At the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games Sohn was present to watch Hwang Young-Cho claim Gold in the marathon.
Sohn became the Chairman of the Korean Sporting Association, and at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, he was given the honour of carrying the Olympic torch into the stadium during the opening ceremony.
Sohn authored an autobiography entitled “My Motherland and Marathon”and is a part of the school syllabus in South Korea.
Sohn waged a one-man campaign, with the support of his country, to have his name, and country of origin officially changed in the Olympic records. Yet the IOC’s website still shows the winner of the Gold medal in the marathon for 1936 as Son Kitei of Japan. Wikipedia have his Korean name but a Japanese flag designating his nation, which is no doubt even more upsetting. It was reported that he said that his country hosting the 1988 Games eased some of the pain.
However on the 9th August 1986 in Culver City in the USA Sohn said “Needless to say, this is my happiest day,” when Culver City officials placed Sohn’s proper name, country, and winning time on a bronze monument honoring Olympic marathon champions.
On December 9, 2011, the IOC announced that it would recognize Sohn’s Korean nationality in his official profile. Yet you type in his name and nothing comes up. If you type in the name under which he competed, Son Kitei, the profile refers to him as Sohn Kee Chung, and explains that he was forced to adopt a Japanese name. An action that is clearly a compromise, and one that undoubtedly would have rubbed salt into a 75 year old wound.
Sohn passed away at the age of 90 in November 2002. To ensure that he is never forgotten the Sohn Kee-chung Memorial Park in Seoul was established in his honour.
Sohn Kee-chung is a hero is in his homeland and always will be. Yet sadly he is a forgotten man to many in the West, as not even his real name appears in the record books during his finest hour, winning an Olympic Gold medal in the Marathon, in an Olympic record time, in his first international race. A result that is truly inspirational.
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