After leaving football and his corporate job, Lee Jun-suk won teqball’s first Asian Games men’s singles gold for Korea.
NAGOYA — Lee Jun-suk defeated Iraq’s Ali Jalil Mezher Alelayawi 2-0 on Sunday to claim the men’s singles gold in teqball at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games.
“Mom, I won a gold medal!” the 27-year-old shouted after winning the final in straight sets, 12-11 and 12-5, at Nagoya Higashi Sports Center.
Teqball is a Hungarian-born sport, essentially table tennis played with the feet and head, in which players pass a football back and forth over a curved table, with up to three touches allowed before it must go over the net. The sport made its Asian Games debut at the Aichi-Nagoya Games.
Lee reached the K4 League, the level just below professional football, before he took up jokgu (Korean foot volleyball) and then discovered teqball, which was not yet an Asian Games event at the time.
After he passed the national team trials, the Asian Games adopted the sport for the first time, and he quit his production job at a large company to train full time.
Because the Korea teqball federation is not a regular member of the Korean Sport & Olympic Committee, Lee could not train at Jincheon National Training Center. He rented a jokgu court in Icheon, Gyeonggi, instead and also went to Hungary, teqball’s birthplace, to train.
His future was uncertain, but his mother believed in his dream. “Whenever I said there was something I wanted to do, my mother encouraged me by saying, ‘Do it. But you have to give it your best. I believe in you,'” Lee said. “If she hadn’t trusted my choice, I would never have come this far.”
His mother, Yoon Seon-jeong, who watched her son play live in Nagoya, said she wanted to back whatever he loved. “Jun-suk is a boy with sound thinking and a clear philosophy of his own,” she said. “I supported him with the idea that he should do whatever he wanted to do.” She spent more than 2 million won ($1,400) on a teqball table for him.
The final did not start smoothly, however.
“The atmosphere was different from the group stage and the semifinal because there were so many spectators, so I was very nervous and made a lot of mistakes early on,” Lee said. “But I thought that if I settled down and chased, I could come back. The start of the first set was the turning point of the match.”
He roared after every point in the second set. “I did a slightly over-the-top celebration because I felt I couldn’t let the momentum slip,” he said. “When I got to 11 points first, I was sure I would win. I’m really happy that I could create a scene I had dreamed of.”
Lee’s win comes despite the conditions at the Games. The teqball team sourced its own meals after the lunches provided by the organizing committee proved inadequate, and it stayed in a cramped business hotel.
“Teqball players train in very poor conditions, and there are no corporate teams,” Lee said. “Many players put aside their livelihoods and take on a reckless challenge. I hope corporate teams are created and players can train in a stable environment.”
BY KIM HYO-KYOUNG [lee.jian@joongang.co.kr]