Signing you in

Ik-heon, the federation president, owns a pork processing plant called Sankjuyakgan headquartered in Sangju, Gyeongsangbuk-do, South Korea. It specialises in a chilled pork processing that he patented called “persimmon-fed pork” (Gam-meogun-doeji) which was developed in collaboration with Kyungpook National University.

His spontaneous offer came after the coach, a former Olympic champion and a bunch of wrestlers broke down at a see-off ceremony with their medal winning prospects looking bleak after the usual chaos that blights wrestling – corruption and demotivated wrestlers.

Ik-heon also announced the silver and bronze medal winners would receive the pork gift-set every month for one year, half of the gold winners.

Yonhap quoted him in an impassioned speech saying, “People in the sport have only been worried about their vested interests; instructors have been too casual in their response, and athletes have been a mess mentally. We cannot afford to just keep saying we will get back on our feet. We all have to look at ourselves in the mirror.” This was followed by the announcement of the pork gifts.

Followers of K Dramas will be familiar with pork-based comfort food, grilled belly Samgyeopsal and Donkatsu cutlets.

The KWF has set its sights on winning at least one gold medal, one silver and six bronze medals at this year’s Asian Games, as per Yonhap.

Korean wrestling has sunk since Rio Games, with Tokyo 2020 Olympics being the first time it failed to reach the podium since 1972. Paris drew a blank too. At the last Asiad in 2023 in Hangzhou, Korea managed just two bronze medals, its worst performance in 57 years.

An Han-bong, the 1992 Olympic gold medalist who now coaches the national team, broke down in tears urging his athletes at the ceremony, to change the script at Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games and step up to deliver medals.

At the Jincheon National Training Center, Han-bong said, “We have our backs against the wall. I hope our athletes will go out and prove that Korean wrestling is not dead.”

“I think everyone here has the same goal as our coach,” Greco Roman 60 kg wrestler Chung Han-jae told Yonhap, as the reigning Asian Games bronze medallist who has moved up to 67kg . “I want to win gold and show how good Korean wrestling is.”

This was followed by wrestlers unfurling a Taegeukgi, the South Korean national flag, with words of their resolution and goals written on it after the no-medal performance at the 2024 Olympics. The flag travels with them to all international competitions over the past two years as a reminder of the hurt. “I want to win gold and celebrate by wrapping my body in this flag,” Kim Min-seok, who won bronze in the men’s 130kg Greco-Roman event at the last Asian Games, was quoted as saying by Yonhap.

However the goals might be tad too ambitious. Chung and Kim Min-seok, the two medal contenders, are both dealing with injuries — Chung returning from a broken right elbow and Kim with a torn pectoral muscle. Most others tipped to win medals, lack international experience.