Medal contenders for South Korea in 2026 winter olympics. Maybe bit less than before.
(In Beijing, 2G 5S 2B)
Short track skating
1~2 Gold , 4~5 total medals
In Men's 1000m or 1500m, 23/24 Crystal Globe winner Ji-Won Park and other players would try to get 1 gold medal, against Canadian team (Dandjinou/Dubois) who would try to sweep the gold medals.
In Women's 1000m and/or 1500m, returned three-time olympic champion Min-Jeong Choi and recent Crystal Globe winner Gil-li Kim is one of the best gold medal contender, and would divide the medals with Netherlands,Belgium (Velzeboer, Schulting, Desmet) and USA team (Santos-Griswold,Stoddard).
Including 1~2 medals in each men/women discipline, 1~2 extra medals could come in relay. There are many variables in the relay, so cannot guess much here. Anyway 1~2 Gold, 1~2 Silver, 1~2 Bronze = total 4~5 medals would be reasonable rough guess totally.
Long track speed skating
1~2? medals : Women's 500m Min-Sun Kim (2024 World championship Silver medalist) and Men's Mass Start Jae-Won Chung (2022 Beijing Silver medalist) are the best medal prospects here.
Although Korea got numerous medals in late olympics (Pyeongchang, Beijing), that generation got older, and no significant new players rise, except those two.
Others with slight chances for top 3: total 1~2 medals
- Snowboarding-Halfpipe: latest WC winner (Men) Chaeun Lee Recently rise as a medal prospect. In women's halfpipe, 16 year old Ga-On Choi is also worth watching, won in 2nd world cup 23/24 season.
- Curling : possible 1 medal in Women's team. Not a concrete contender, but always have possibilities for semifinal and more.
- Skeleton : possible 1 medal in Men's Skeleton for Seung-gi Jung, who is one of the rising players. 3rd in 2023 WC, etc.
- etc : Very small chance for Women's figure skating. But performance of players weren't good enough in this season.
Totally, 1~2 Gold, 6~8 total medals expected.