Seo Young-woo ( ko, 서영우, born 27 October 1991) is a South Korean

bobsledder Bobsleigh or bobsled is a team winter sport that involves making timed runs down narrow, twisting, banked, iced tracks in a gravity-powered sleigh. International bobsleigh competitions are governed by the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Feder ...

who competes as the brakeman for the two-man bobsled piloted by

Won Yun-jong Won Yun-jong (born 17 June 1985) is a South Korean bobsledder. Won competed at the 2014 Winter Olympics for South Korea. He teamed with brakeman Seo Young-woo in the South Korea-1 sled in the two-man event, finishing 18th, and with Seo, Jun J ...

as well as a push crewman for the four-man bobsled also piloted by Won Yun-jong.

Career

Seo previously competed in track & field as a high school athlete. As a freshman at Sungkyul University, he was selected for the South Korean national bobsleigh team in early 2010 and made his first international appearance at the North American Cup in Park City in November 2010. Seo competed at the

2014 Winter Olympics The 2014 Winter Olympics, officially called the XXII Olympic Winter Games (russian: XXII Олимпийские зимние игры, XXII Olimpiyskiye zimniye igry) and commonly known as Sochi 2014 (russian: Сочи 2014), was an international ...

for South Korea. He teamed with pilot

in the South Korea-1 sled in the two-man event, finishing 18th, and with Won, Jun Jung-lin and

Suk Young-jin Suk Young-Jin (; born in Pohang) is a South Korean bobsledder.FIBT Profile
S ...

in the four-man, finishing 20th. His best showing at the

IBSF World Championships IBSF World Championship may refer to: * IBSF World Snooker Championship *IBSF World Championships (bobsleigh and skeleton) The IBSF World Championships (known as the FIBT World Championships until 2015), part of the International Bobsleigh and S ...

is fifth, in the two-man event in

2015 File:2015 Events Collage new.png, From top left, clockwise: Civil service in remembrance of November 2015 Paris attacks; Germanwings Flight 9525 was purposely crashed into the French Alps; the rubble of residences in Kathmandu following the April ...

. Seo made his

World Cup A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the concept i ...

debut in December 2010, as a brakeman for mediocre driver Kang Kwang-bae. After a couple of rocky seasons with different pilots, Seo temporarily quit bobsleigh to focus on studying in college. Seo teamed up with promising pilot Won Yun-jong in 2013 when Seo returned to the national team, and his team outperformed expectations. Following a respectable 11th-place finish in 2014–15 World Cup season series, Seo & Won became the overall champion in the 2015–2016 World Cup season, clinching five medals including two gold medals at Whistler and Konigssee. Their performances gradually deteriorated in the 2016–17 season when the duo began to use the domestic sled that was manufactured by the

Hyundai Motor Company Hyundai Motor Company, often abbreviated to Hyundai Motors ( ) and commonly known as Hyundai (, ; ), is a South Korean multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Seoul, South Korea, and founded in 1967. Currently, the company o ...

, South Korea's largest automaker. Seo and Won never stood on a podium in any race during the World Cup series and dipped to an IBSF ranking of 46th. Prior to the

2018 Winter Olympics The 2018 Winter Olympics ( ko, 2018년 동계 올림픽, Icheon sip-pal nyeon Donggye Ollimpik), officially the XXIII Olympic Winter Games (french: Les XXIIIes Jeux olympiques d'hiver; ko, 제23회 동계 올림픽, Jeisipsamhoe Donggye Ollimpi ...

, the duo eventually decided to use Larvia's BTC sled again that they became the World Cup overall champion with. Seo along with pilot Won placed sixth out of 30 teams in the two-man event at the 2018 Winter Olympics in

Pyeongchang Pyeongchang (; in full, ''Pyeongchang-gun'' ; ) is a county in the province of Gangwon-do, South Korea, located in the Taebaek Mountains region. It is home to several Buddhist temples, including Woljeongsa. It is about east southeast of S ...

on February 19, recording an overall time of 3:17.40 in four runs. Although they failed to win a medal, it was the best Olympic result by an Asian bobsleigh team. The following week, on February 25, the South Korean four-man team of Seo, Won, Kim Dong-hyun and Jun Jung-lin won a surprising silver medal in the four-man event, tying with a German team led by

Nico Walther Nico Walther (born 7 June 1990) is a German bobsledder. He competed in the four-man event at the 2018 Winter Olympics The 2018 Winter Olympics ( ko, 2018년 동계 올림픽, Icheon sip-pal nyeon Donggye Ollimpik), officially the XXIII Olymp ...

. With the silver medal, South Korea became the first Asian nation to claim an Olympic medal in a bobsleigh event.

Filmography

Television show

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Seo, Young-Woo 1991 births Living people People from Seosan Olympic bobsledders for South Korea Bobsledders at the 2014 Winter Olympics Bobsledders at the 2018 Winter Olympics South Korean male bobsledders Olympic medalists in bobsleigh Olympic silver medalists for South Korea Medalists at the 2018 Winter Olympics Sportspeople from South Chungcheong Province