SKT dials in on success for Team Korea's Olympic fencers

Korea's top telco has a history of sponsoring the Korean fencing team, a tradition that continued with new innovations for the Paris Games.

From left: Korea's Gu Bong-gil, Park Sang-won, Oh Sang-uk and Do Gyeong-dong pose with their medals after winning the men's sabre team competition at the 2024 Paris Olympics in Paris on Wednesday. [YONHAP]

When Korea’s gold-medal winning men’s sabre team stepped onto the piste at the Grand Palais in Paris on Wednesday, it might have felt like they were back at the national training center in Jincheon, North Chungcheong, on a replica piste built by SK Telecom.

The company has a long history with the country’s fencing scene, having headed the Korean Fencing Federation since 2003, hosting the SK Telecom Fencing Grand Prix while also investing 30 billion won ($22 million) in the sport over the years.

SK Telecom built an Olympic-standard piste at the Jincheon National Training Center to replicate the event's atmosphere for the fencers. [SK TELECOM]

For Paris, preparations included a setup managed by SK and the federation to providing a convincing simulation of the actual venue’s atmosphere with an Olympic-standard piste at the Jincheon National Training Center that also replicated crowd noise and lighting.

The company also dispatched a team of seven training partner athletes and performance analysts, as well as two medical trainers to Paris, where a hotel near the venue was booked early to serve as the de facto base camp for the team.

Team Korea fencers are also spared from the spreading disgruntlement in the Olympic village over the food, with the daily delivery of lunch boxes from a Korean restaurant near the Champs-Elysees coordinated by the telco.

Choi Shin-won, former SK Networks chairman and current president of the federation, visited the French capital to encourage the athletes.

The company’s efforts have not gone unnoticed.

“With SK Telecom’s support, I was able to participate in dozens of international competitions, such as the Grand Prix and World Cups, during my career as an athlete, which helped to build my competitiveness,” said Won Woo-young, the men’s sabre national team coach and gold medalist for the Korean men’s sabre team at the 2012 London Olympics.

“I hope the success achieved through the interest and consistent support of a single company continues on.”

BY LEE JAE-LIM [lee.jaelim@joongang.co.kr]