Park Chan-joo wins gold medal in the free weight division, protecting the reputation of the country where ssireum originated
Koffie Sameul from Ghana currently studying at the Park Chung Hee School of Policy and Saemaul wins bronze medal in his first appearance
[September 11, 2019]
The YU Ssireum Team (Coach Heo Yong) won the gold and bronze medals at the 2019 Chungju World Martial Arts Mastership.
At the 2019 Chungju World Martial Arts Mastership held at the Chungju National Sports Center from September 5 to 6, Park Chan-joo (21, Special Physical Education, junior, right on photo) of the YU Ssireum Team an Koffie Samuel (40, Park Chung Hee School of Policy and Saemaul, master’s course 2nd term, right on photo) won the gold medal and bronze medal, respectively, in ssireum.
In the free weight division, Park Chan-joo who represented Korea defeated multiple Mongolian athletes weighing over 180kg and took the gold medal to keep Korea on top of ssireum as the originators of ssireum.
Park Chan-joo said, “I am very proud of winning the gold medal and winning the title of the world’s best ssireum athlete in the first international competition. I will also do my best to win the gold medal at the 100th natinal sports competition that will be held in Seoul later in October.”
Also, Koffie Samuel from Ghana, who won the bronze medal in the –75kg division, first learned about ssireum while studying at YU. This is his first appearance in an official tournament. After completing the highly intense training of the ssireum team and shedding off 4kg to compete in the tournament, he was able to take home the bronze medal.
Koffie Samuel said, “I registered for this tournament with the goal of experiencing the traditional sports of Korea for myself. It was very meaningful just to be able to learn ssireum and compete in the tournament, and it feels like a dream to have won the bronze medal.” He added, “I would like to thank the coach and trainer and Kim sang-hyu of the ssireum team who helped me greatly with training for this tournament.”
The 2019 Chungju World Martial Arts Mastership is the world’s only comprehensive martial arts competition where over 4,000 athletes from over 100 countries participated in 20 martial arts such as ssireum, judo, taekwondo and jujitsu. This year, around 100 athletes from 14 countries participated in ssireum.
