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Jung Yanghun (GER) competes during the 2022 ISU World Short Track Championships in Montreal (CAN) @ISU
Back in 2017 the preciously talented 15-year-old Yanghun Ben Jung (GER) looked set to be the next big name in the Republic of Korea’s enviable Short Track Speed Skating conveyor belt of talent. But life got in the way. Now, five years later, he is back, albeit with a different flag on his chest. It is an extraordinary story and one Jung tells best.
“I was one of the top three junior Short Track Speed Skaters in Korea. I was a really good skater but then our whole family had to move to Germany because my father had to work there,” Jung said, before revealing the most surprising part of all. “I decided to stop skating and to focus on school.”
The dedicated student did not step on the ice at all for his first seven months in a totally foreign country. By most accounts the sporting story would likely stop there. Jung’s parents, however, had other ideas.
First, Jung’s dad discovered the Eislauf-Verein club, an uplifting and well-respected skating venue in nearby Dresden, and then he and his wife came up with what may have seemed like a crazy idea.
“My parents asked me, ‘Do you want to compete at the Korean National Short Track Speed Skating Championships in February 2018?’” Jung revealed.
By the time of the Championships, he would have been away from the top end of his sport for a full year but the prospect of heading back to his homeland and competing in one of the most prestigious events of all was too alluring.
Fired with a new passion, Jung headed for the club in Dresden and slipped back into his skates. But this time things were different. The intensity of his previous life as a skater was gone, instead the teenage Jung trained sporadically and always with a smile on his face. The new approach seemed to work.
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Jung Yanghun (GER) competes during the 2022 ISU World Short Track Championships in Montreal (CAN) @ISU
“I came second in the 500m,” a still-surprised Jung said with a smile. “My parents, my friends, my old teammates, my old trainer and even I didn’t expect to get a silver medal at all. “That moment made me keep skating until today. That was my favorite moment and the most unforgettable memory in my Short Track career so far.”
Jung was back. By the 2019/20 season he was part of Germany’s World Cup squad, helping the Men’s and mixed gender Relay teams secure three top-15 finishes.
Addicted to speed and blessed with a beautifully taught technique, Jung was loving life on the ice once more. Not that things were suddenly easy for a young man living almost 8,500km from his native Daejeon.
Jung is well aware of how much his parents have given up to support his and his sister’s sporting aims. “They lived in Korea most of their lives and my parents are staying here just for my sister and me, I guess. For sure my parents miss Korea a lot but I’m happy that we live together.”
His sibling, the 18-year-old Myeongbi Jung, competed in the 2022 World Short Track Speed Skating Junior Championships.
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Myeongbi Jung (GER) competes during the 2022 ISU World Junior Short Track Speed Skating Championships in Gdansk (POL) @ISU
Listening to German songs and watching Netflix in German have improved his language skills so dramatically that he now speaks that language better than English. It has no doubt helped integrate him swiftly within the German World Cup squad, a move that has paid quick dividends.
“If my teammates hadn’t helped me in training I would not have been able to skate so good at the (2022) World Championships,” Jung said.
The now 20-year-old finished 11th in the 500m, comfortably his standout individual performance so far and one that has transformed his ambitions for this season.
“It made me super happy and gave me a lot of motivation,” he said. “I‘ve been training hard with my teammates and my trainer for this season even though I had to go to school at the same time. “I’m looking forward to skating in the main events so that I’m in the top 15 (in the World Cup rankings) in every distance.”
That would complete a remarkable journey.
