52 Facts About Lee Kyou-hyuk

Lee Kyou-hyuk is a South Korean retired long track speed skater who specializes in the 500 and 1,000 meters.

Lee Kyou-hyuk was the 2007,2008,2010 and 2011 World Sprint Speed Skating Champion and the 2011 World Champion for 500 m Lee Kyou-hyuk is one of four men to have won the World Sprint Speed Skating Championships four times.

Lee Kyou-hyuk has set two world records during his career.

Lee Kyou-hyuk made his debut in ISU events in 1992 at age 13, when he competed at the World Junior Championships in Warsaw.

Lee Kyou-hyuk did not qualify for the final distance, but his samalog total ranked him as 21st of 49 competitors and the second best from South Korea.

Lee Kyou-hyuk returned the following year but again failed to qualify, though he improved two places and was the best Korean after Bong Ju-hyeon got disqualified in the 1,500 meters.

At the Olympics, Lee Kyou-hyuk finished 36th at the 500 meters and 32nd at the 1,000 meters.

Lee Kyou-hyuk finished fourth at the Junior Championships in 1995 and 1996, losing his lead after the opening three distances to long-distance specialists Bob de Jong and Mark Knoll.

Lee Kyou-hyuk even made the podium 0.15 seconds behind winner Gerard van Velde at a race in Jeonju.

Over this period of his career, Lee Kyou-hyuk was an out-and-out sprinter who only participated in the 500 and 1,000 meter races.

Lee Kyou-hyuk missed the final two World Cup meets, before and after the Olympics, but after four of eight sprint events he was placed fifth in the 1,000 meters World Cup and tenth in the 500 meters World Cup.

Lee Kyou-hyuk finished 12th at the World Sprint Championships in Berlin two weeks before the Olympics, and registered 8th and 13th place in his two Olympic appearances.

Lee Kyou-hyuk was relegated to the B group in the World Cup following finishes of between 25 and 38 in the opening race in Nagano, and did not figure in the top eight of the B group either.

Lee Kyou-hyuk finished on the podium twice in a World Cup race, in Seoul and Calgary, and in 20 World Cup starts he never finished out of the top 11.

Lee Kyou-hyuk finished fourth in the overall World Cup standings in the 1,000 meters and sixth in the 500 meters, his best records in the overall World Cup.

Lee Kyou-hyuk began the Olympic season with fifth place during a 500-meter race in the Utah Olympic Oval, but finished 19th on a 1,000 meter race that weekend.

Lee Kyou-hyuk won a B group race during that World Cup event, and finished third on the 1,000 meters behind two Dutchmen.

Lee Kyou-hyuk's best placing in an individual race was fifth on the first 500 meters.

Lee Kyou-hyuk finished in eighth place on both the 1,000 meters and the 1,500 meters, though on the latter he was within half a second of a medal.

Lee Kyou-hyuk finished off the season with three top-ten placings at the World Cup finals in Inzell, which secured eighth place in the overall 500 metre World Cup.

In 2003, Lee Kyou-hyuk again put in consistent placings between 4 and 11 in the World Cup, except for the 100 metre event in Inzell where he finished 24th.

Lee Kyou-hyuk improved to 11th in the World Sprint Championships, but during the World Single Distance Championships he failed to place in the top 20 of 24 skaters on any distance.

Lee Kyou-hyuk took part in his fourth Olympic Games in Turin, and showed strength by winning a 1000-metre test race in Calgary in 1:08.77, close to his personal best.

Lee Kyou-hyuk later lowered it during the World Cup in Salt Lake City, skating a new personal best of 1:08.16 to finish fifth, and he came fourth in a race in Turin two months before the Games, 0.14 behind winner Dmitry Dorofeyev, though in a race without world record holder Shani Davis.

Lee Kyou-hyuk skated in the penultimate pair, and had the bronze when he finished, but Dutchman Erben Wennemars finished 0.05 ahead to beat the Korean.

At the first World Cup meet of the season in Thialf, Lee Kyou-hyuk won the first 1000 metres and placed second and third in the 500 metre races, and led the 1000 metre World Cup after one weekend.

Lee Kyou-hyuk then won a 500-metre race in Berlin Sportforum, thus taking the lead in both sprint distance cups before the sprinters travelled to Asia.

Lee Kyou-hyuk remained in the lead in both sprint World Cups, but after fourth and sixth places in M-Wave, Nagano, he had to give the 500 metre lead over to Japanese skater Nagashima.

Lee Kyou-hyuk was runner-up in both 1000 metre races, though, and led the 1000 metre World Cup by 80 points before the six-week World Cup break.

However, Lee Kyou-hyuk lost less on the second day's 500 metre race, and set Koskela the challenge of repeating his time from Saturday to become World Sprint Champion.

Lee Kyou-hyuk then travelled to Changchun for the 2007 Winter Asian Games, missing a coinciding World Cup meet in Heerenveen to fall down to fourth place in the 500 metre standings and second place in the 1000 metre standings.

Lee Kyou-hyuk thus became the most-winning male speed skater at the Games.

Lee Kyou-hyuk did set a personal best on the 1000 metres, going under 1:08 for the first time in his career, but finished in fourth place, finishing a tenth of a second too late to beat Erben Wennemars in the overall World Cup.

Lee Kyou-hyuk finished off the season with two appearances at the World Single Distance Championships in Utah Olympic Oval.

Lee Kyou-hyuk bettered his personal bests by nearly 0.3 seconds on the 500 metres and 0.4 on the 1000, but still missed the medal in the 500 metres by 0.01 seconds, finishing fourth after a tie with Tucker Fredricks was split on the time in the second race.

Lee Kyou-hyuk came back to win bronze in the 1000 metre event, again beaten by Davis as well as Denny Morrison.

Lee Kyou-hyuk continued to be among the top world skaters on the shorter distances in the 2008 season.

Lee Kyou-hyuk then missed out on Sunday's 1000 metre victory by 0.04 seconds, and despite lowering his personal best to 1:07.07, he ended in third place, advancing to fourth on the all-time list and a Korean record.

Lee Kyou-hyuk picked up podium spots on the 500 m in Heerenveen and Erfurt, and had three successive third-place appearances on the 1000 m, starting with the race in Calgary.

Lee Kyou-hyuk became world sprint champion despite trailing Jeremy Wotherspoon by 0.365 points after the first day, by winning both distances on the final day.

Lee Kyou-hyuk beat Wotherspoon on the 500 m, his only win over Wotherspoon in twelve races, and then faced off with Wotherspoon in the final pair of the 1000 m, with Lee Kyou-hyuk needing to win by 0.53 seconds.

Lee Kyou-hyuk only got two further podium appearances in the remainder of the season; a third place in the final meet at Heerenveen on the 500 m secured the fourth place overall, and on 1000 m he ended sixth, falling from a second spot overall before the New Year.

Lee Kyou-hyuk enjoyed another season near the world top in 2009, finishing on the podium in 9 of 22 international starts, and winning two 500 m races and one 1000 m race.

At the 500 m in the World Single Distance Championship, Lee Kyou-hyuk beat every race winner from earlier in the season, only to be pipped to the title by Lee Kyou-hyuk Kang-seok.

Lee Kyou-hyuk finished second on the 1000 metres, though well behind both his personal best and the winner Davis.

In January 2010, Lee Kyou-hyuk was one of the few top skaters who entered the World Sprint Championships in Obihiro, Japan.

Lee Kyou-hyuk won both 1000 m races and finished on the podium in the 500 m races, winning the overall title by a margin of nearly one point after four races, the largest margin of victory for eighteen years.

Lee Kyou-hyuk thus became the fourth male skater to win three world sprint titles.

However, Lee Kyou-hyuk was unable to back up his good form in the four pre-Olympic years at the Vancouver Olympics; 9th place on 1000 m and 15th place on 500 m meant that the veteran had his worst Olympic performance since his 1994 debut.

Lee Kyou-hyuk was one of few disappointments in a strong Korean team, which topped the medal table in speed skating; teammate Mo Tae-bum, who had skipped the Obihiro championship, won the 500 m gold.

In December 2010, Lee Kyou-hyuk won his 10th consecutive National Sprint Speed Skating Championships.

Lee Kyou-hyuk married actress Son Dam-bi on May 13,2022 in a private ceremony.