At the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, which started on July 23 and ended on August 8, the South Korea national team got 20 medals, six gold medals, four silver medals, and ten bronze medals. Among the medalists, three players are exempt from the mandatory military service: Kim Je-deok of archery, An Chang-rim of judo, and Jang-jun of taekwondo with each gold medal, bronze medal, and bronze medal.

▲ 2020 Tokyo Olympic Closing Ceremony

According to Article 68 of the Enforcement Decree of the Military Service Act, at least a third-place player in the Olympics or first place player in the Asian Games does alternative service as a "physical educational agent". The agents are trained for three weeks with basic military training. Then, they can continue their career as players for 34 months. It was introduced in 1973 with the aim of requiring specialists in arts and sports who contributed to promoting national prestige and cultural development to serve as art and sports agents instead of military service.

▲ Kim Je-deok of archery, An Chang-rim of judo, and Jang-jun of taekwondo

This exemption from mandatory military service helps the players since it makes no career break. However, this is a controversial problem. The possibility of winning a medal is very different from event to event. For example, swimming and track and field are sports that are really hard to win the medal for South Korean players. In many cases, they cannot win a medal even after producing a result that deserves applause. In reality, Hwang Sun-woo of swimming and Woo Sang-hyeok of the high jump of field and track recorded new records at the Tokyo Olympics, but they could not win the medal, so there is no exemption from military service for them. Some suggested that these special military service standards are not reasonable.

▲ Woo Sang-hyeok of the high jump of field and track

Despite some controversies, the South Korean national team did their best. The 25-year old athlete said that he has experienced a lot of successes and failures to reach this point. If the players put all other thoughts out of mind and do it again, the pleasure would be with them.

August 8th, 2021

by An So-mi