Hwang Young-Cho

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Hwang Young-Cho
Hangul:	황영조
Hanja:	黃永祚
Revised Romanization:	Hwang Yeong-jo
McCune-Reischauer:	Hwang Yŏng-cho

Men's Athletics
Olympic medal record
Gold	Barcelona 1992	Marathon

Hwang Young-Cho (born March 22, 1970) is a former South Korean athlete, winner of the marathon race at the 1992 Summer Olympics.

Born in Samcheok, South Korea, Hwang Young-Cho was a promising track athlete in his junior years, but after his first marathon in 1991, which he won, decided to specialize to marathon.

The Barcelona Olympic marathon was only fourth of his career. From the first three, he had won two and placed second on a third occasion. in Barcelona Hwang was in the leading pack from the start, but in a slowly run race, this group still numbered thirty runners at the halfway mark. However, runners gradually lost contact with the leaders in the second half of the race, until at 35 km, only Hwang and Koichi Morishita from Japan remained. They had a quite memorable struggle, until Hwang broke free after 40 km to win a gold medal.

Hwang raced sparingly after Barcelona, and he retired after injury prevented him from gaining a place on the 1996 South Korean Olympic team.

Hwang was depicted on the 2006 real,- Berlin Marathon medal, because of his victory in the 1992 olympic marathon event.

[edit] South Koreans' Olympic marathon medals

Hwang was one of two Korean athletes who won Olympic marathon. Another one was Sohn Kee-chung. In Olympic marathons, Hwang's contemporay South Korean athlete Lee Bong-Ju won the silver medal in the marathon at the 1996 Summer Olympics held in Atlanta, United States, and Nam Sung-yong won the bronze medal at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin at the same race Sohn Kee-chung ran.