Track and Field in Korea?

[Yoo]

Does anyone know how the national track circuit functions in Korea? Especially for high school kids? I go to school in the US, but I'm a Korean citizen. I'm sixteen years old and I've run 1:54.3 for 800 meters, which is 3+ seconds under the World Youth Championships qualifying standard for this year. I was wondering what the qualifying procedures are for international competitions like that and if I can compete/be competitive nationally... My times don't get me anywhere in America, but from what I have gathered through the internet Korea is not exactly strong at anything running distances under the marathon.

[Michael Davidson]

Yoo,

I don't know much about Korea specifically, but I can explain a bit about how you would qualify generally. Usually you have to have run the standard in a specific time frame and to qualify to represent a specific country you'd probably have to at least run their trials race (i.e. like a National Junior championship). The place you should look (I assume you can read Korean or know someone who can) is: http://www.kaf.go.kr/. If there is a team being sent you should look into it.

The IAAF website has the following info, but you probably already know as much: http://www.iaaf.org/statistics/standards/newsid=47831.html.

I'm not sure how the championship system works in Korea. I thought I recently read something about the Senior Championships. At the very minimum contact the Korea Athletics Federation and they would tell you what you need to do.

Good Luck!

[Yoo]

I know the National Youth Championships is how you qualify here in the US, and I was wondering if that was how it was in Korea. I've checked the federation's website, but it seems as though there are like 10 different "national" competitions that I don't really know which is which (KBS Nationals, Junior National Championships, Fall National Championships, National Athletics Festival, etc.). I have also contacted the federation previously through phone but they tell me that I can only compete at national competitions if I attend a school there, which sounds a bit dubious, since in a lot of the results they have on the site there are kids that run attached to their city governments ("시청") as well as their high schools, and I know at least in America you can compete unattached at just about every meet. I'll look into it a little bit more. Do you happen to know if there's a Korean version of something like a LetsRun.com, Runnersworld, or DyeStat.com that covers track/road racing in the country?