"'Hoop-Rolling and Sohn Kee-chung's Run' Captures 100 Years of Korean Sports... National Sports Museum Opens"

Korea's first national museum dedicated to sports... houses 70,000 items
Features storage facilities and a rooftop garden, with spaces for exhibitions, education, and research

"We live in a world ruled by people with loud voices. I wanted to show just how powerful silence can be, compared with noise or the sound of bombs exploding."

The late Lee O-young, then Minister of Culture, explained that this was why he included “Silence,” a performance in which Yoon Tae-woong, then a first-grader at Jamwon Elementary School, rolled a hoop during the opening ceremony of the 1988 Seoul Olympics. He made the remarks in an interview for “Sseoul! Corea! The Flame That Never Goes Out,” published by the Korea Sports Promotion Foundation in 2018 to mark the 30th anniversary of the Seoul Olympics. Lee served as general director of the opening and closing ceremonies of the 1988 Seoul Olympics.

At the National Sports Museum, which opened on October 15 in Olympic Park in Songpa-gu, Seoul, visitors can see the hoop Yoon rolled at the ceremony. Yoon donated it to mark the museum’s opening. Olympic gold medals were also donated by Yang Jeong-mo, South Korea’s first Olympic gold medalist since the establishment of the Republic of Korea, who won in wrestling; Ha Hyeongju, chairman of the Korea Sports Promotion Foundation, who won in judo; Shim Kwon-ho, the first wrestler in history to achieve a Grand Slam in two weight classes; and Jang Mi-ran, former vice minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism, who won in weightlifting.

Nam Insoon, Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly; Choi Hwiyoung, Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism; and Lee Jaejung, Chair of the National Assembly Culture, Sports and Tourism Committee (from left), look at a model of the hoop-rolling boy from the opening ceremony of the 1988 Seoul Olympics at the National Sports Museum in Songpa-gu, Seoul, on the 15th. Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

Culture, Sports and Tourism Minister Choi Hwiyeong views Park Jisung's Seryu Elementary School uniform on display at the National Sports Museum on the 15th. Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism

The National Sports Museum is the first national museum in South Korea dedicated to sports. It is a hub for sports heritage, established to document the history of South Korean sports and systematically collect and preserve sports heritage scattered across the country and abroad for use in exhibitions, education and research. The museum spans two basement levels and four above-ground floors. It includes a special exhibition hall, permanent exhibition galleries, storage facilities and a rooftop garden. The existing Seoul Olympic Museum has also been renovated, with a children’s museum, a specialist sports library, and spaces for education and hands-on activities.

Visitors can also see footage of the late Sohn Kee-chung competing in the marathon at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. The footage is from “Olympia,” a film documenting the Berlin Olympics by German director Leni Riefenstahl. Riefenstahl filmed the Games with the full support of Hitler and the Nazi regime. The footage vividly shows Sohn running through Berlin and entering the Olympic Stadium ahead of the other competitors before crossing the finish line. It also shows Nam Seung-yong, who won the bronze medal, racing, and the two athletes bowing their heads on the podium.

“Olympia” has been praised for capturing the beauty of sport through innovative cinematography, but also criticized for serving as propaganda that promoted the superiority of Nazi Germany’s political system. For Koreans, however, it is valuable footage that shows the sporting heroes who gave people pride during the Japanese colonial period.

The National Sports Museum currently collects and holds approximately 70,000 sports-related items.

By hosting the 1988 Seoul Olympics, the 2002 Korea-Japan World Cup, the 2011 World Championships in Athletics in Daegu and the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, South Korea became the world’s fifth country to achieve a “mega-sports grand slam,” after Italy, Germany, Japan and France. The country has also established itself as a global sporting power, ranking fourth overall at the 1988 Seoul Olympics and fifth at both the 2012 London Olympics and the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.

Some say that, given this standing, the National Sports Museum should have been built sooner. Discussions on establishing a national sports museum began in the National Assembly in 2013, and its budget and total project cost were finalized in 2015, but it took more than 10 years for the museum to open. The project faced a series of setbacks, including the COVID-19 pandemic and the discovery of cultural artifacts early in construction, which led to changes in the architectural design.

Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Choi Hwiyeong, Korea Sports Promotion Foundation Chairman Ha Hyeongju, Korean Sport & Olympic Committee President Ryu Seungmin, and others plant a commemorative tree at the opening ceremony of the National Sports Museum in Songpa-gu, Seoul, on the 15th. Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.

A view of the National Sports Museum. Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism

At the opening ceremony that day, Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Choi Hwiyeong said, "Even when our country was taken from us, our people preserved their national identity through sports. And by successfully hosting events such as the 1988 Olympics and Paralympics, we used sports to show the world the outstanding capabilities of our people." He added, "The National Sports Museum will be a precious place where records and heritage of our sports are preserved at the national level and their value passed on to future generations. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism will work alongside the museum to help it become the central hub for South Korea’s sports heritage."

Ha Hyeongju, chairman of the Korea Sports Promotion Foundation, which operates the National Sports Museum, said, "Olympic Park and the sports and cultural facilities in and around it are precious national assets that have been part of people’s lives, as well as a legacy of the 1988 Seoul Olympics. We will protect them with a deep sense of responsibility so they remain a source of pride for future generations."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.