Yun Sung-bin

In this Korean name, the family name is Yun.

Yun Sung-bin (Korean: 윤성빈; born 23 May 1994)^[2] is a South Korean skeleton racer. He won the gold medal in men's skeleton at the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang and was a participant at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.^[3]

Yun Sung-bin

Yun Sung-bin (2019)
Personal information
Nickname	Iron Man[1]
Nationality	South Korean
Born	(1994-05-23) 23 May 1994 (age 30) Namhae, South Korea
Height	1.78 m (5 ft 10 in)
Weight	92.7 kg (204 lb)
Sport
Country	South Korea
Sport	Skeleton
Turned pro	2011
Medal record Olympic Games 2018 Pyeongchang Men World Championships 2016 Igls Men 2019 Whistler Men

Yun Sung-bin
Hangul	윤성빈
Hanja	尹誠彬
Revised Romanization	Yun Seongbin
McCune–Reischauer	Yun Sŏngbin

Early life and education

Born in 1994 in South Korea's southern coastal region of Namhae, South Gyeongsang Province, Yun grew up knowing nothing about the winter sliding sport. Still, as a child, Yun always enjoyed running around at the beach and excelled in many sports at school, including soccer, badminton, competitive running, and jumping, among others.^[4]

Yun moved to Seoul when he was in middle school and continued playing sports at school, hoping to get into a sports university. In 100-metre races, he would ask to start 10 metres back from others his age and still beat other runners. At 1.78 meter in height, he could grab a basketball rim with ease.^[5] While playing basketball in high school, Yun's natural athletic ability was noticed by his physical education teacher, Kim Young-tae, who was also serving as one of the officials at the Korea Bobsleigh Skeleton Federation at the time.^[4]

Yun attended Korea National Sport University, who had recruited him from his teacher's recommendation.^[6]

Career

Yun is known for his exceptional agility and athleticism, enabling him to pick things up in the sport quickly. Yun is also famous for his Iron Man-like helmet, which makes it appear that the Marvel comic hero is flying full-speed ahead when Yun is on the track.^[7]

Yun started skeleton at the age of 18 in early 2012, and after three-month training, he won the national championship in September 2012.^[8] Yun made his international debut in the 2012–13 season, appearing at the North American Cup Tour. Yun first garnered attention in the 2013–14 season when he was ranked fifth overall at the 2013–14 FIBT Intercontinental Cup Tour. He won gold in the sixth round of the tour in Whistler, Canada on 5–6 January 2014, becoming the first Korean skeleton slider to finish on top of the podium at an international event.^[3]

Yun finished his first Olympic competition with a disappointing 16th place in Sochi. Yun, however, flourished in the 2014–15 season under the tutelage of British sled specialist Richard Bromley, a co-founder of Bromley Sports, one of the world's top sled manufacturing companies.^[9] Yun recorded his first World Cup podium with a bronze at Calgary in December 2014. In the overall 2014–15 World Cup rankings, Yun finished his rookie season in sixth place with one silver and two bronze.

In the 2015–16 season, Yun earned his first World Cup gold medal in the seventh round in St. Moritz, along with a silver at the 2016 IBSF World Championships in Igls, finishing the season's overall World Cup rankings in second place with one gold, three silver, and two bronze.

In the 2016–17 season, Yun earned his second World Cup gold medal in the first round in Whistler. He finished the season's overall World Cup rankings in second place with one gold, three silver, and two bronze.

Yun won the overall 2017–18 World Cup, becoming the first Asian athlete to ever win the overall title in the Skeleton World Cup. Despite opting to miss the World Cup finale in Königssee, he managed to score a total of 1,545 points from five wins and two silver medals, giving him enough to win the overall standings ahead of Axel Jungk (1,507 points) and Tomass Dukurs (1,464).^[10]

At the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, Yun captured a gold medal, becoming the first athlete from outside Europe and North America to win an Olympic sliding medal and the first athlete from South Korea to win a Winter Olympic medal in a non-ice skating event.^[11] His four-run time of 3 minutes, 20.55 seconds was 1.63 seconds ahead of silver medalist Nikita Tregubov of Russia. It was the biggest victory margin in Olympic skeleton, topping 1948 when Italy's Nino Bibbia topped Jack Heaton of the United States by 1.4 seconds in a six-heat race.^[12]

Yun was a contestant in the 2023 Netflix reality competition Physical: 100.

Results

World Cup

Overall standings

2014—15			2015—16			2016—17			2017—18
Races	Points	Position	Races	Points	Position	Races	Points	Position	Races	Points	Position
7/8	1218	6th	8/8	1575	2nd	8/8	1623	2nd	7/8	1545	1st
2018—19			2019—20			2020-21			2021-22
Races	Points	Position	Races	Points	Position	Races	Points	Position	Races	Points	Position
8/8	1680	2nd	8/8	1581	3rd	3/8	607	17	8/8	1012	11

Race victories (10)

No.	Season	Round	Date	Location	Margin	Runner(s)-up
1	2015–16	7	5 February 2016	St. Moritz, Switzerland	0.07	Martins Dukurs, Tomass Dukurs
2	2016–17	1	3 December 2016	Whistler, Canada	0.12	Alexander Tretiakov
3	2017–18	2	18 November 2017	Park City, USA	0.63	Martins Dukurs
4		3	25 November 2017	Whistler, Canada	0.75	Nikita Tregubov
5		4	8 December 2017	Winterberg, Germany	0.06	Martins Dukurs
6		6	5 January 2018	Altenberg, Germany	0.39	Alexander Tretiakov
7		7	12 January 2018	St. Moritz, Switzerland	0.87	Axel Jungk
8	2018–19	5	25 January 2019	St. Moritz, Switzerland	0.20	Alexander Tretiakov
9		9	24 February 2019	Calgary, Canada	0.06	Alexander Tretiakov
10	2019–20	3	5 January 2020	Winterberg, Germany	0.05	Alexander Gassner

Filmography

Television show

Year	Title	Role	Notes	Ref.
2022	Golf King	Cast Member	Season 4	[13]

Web shows

Year	Title	Role	Ref.
2023	Physical: 100	Contestant	[14]

References

1. Chung, Jane; Kim, Soyoung (18 February 2018). "Korean 'Iron Man' Yun recalls pain to gain". Reuters. Retrieved 6 March 2018.
2. "Athlete information: Sungbin YUN". International Bobsleigh & Skeleton Federation. Retrieved 8 March 2018.
3. "Yun Sung-bin – South Korea". SOOC. Retrieved 5 March 2018.
4. Lee, Claire (16 February 2018). "South Korea's 'Iron Man' Yun Sung-bin wins historic gold in men's skeleton". The Korea Herald . Retrieved 6 March 2018.
5. Vanderklippe, Nathan; Yoo, Cynthia (16 February 2018). "Skeleton Olympic champion Yun Sung-bin blesses South Korea with a moment of national euphoria". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 6 March 2018.
6. Joo, Kyung-don (16 February 2018). "Yun Sung-bin: 1st Asian to win medal in skeleton". Yonhap. Retrieved 6 March 2018.
7. Parker, Ryan (16 February 2018). "Jon Favreau's a Fan of "Iron Man" Olympic Racer Yun Sung-Bin". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 5 March 2018.
8. Park, Min-young (13 February 2013). 스켈레톤 윤성빈, 질주본능 터진다. Hankook Ilbo (in Korean). Archived from the original on 22 February 2014.
9. Kim, Ji-han (10 November 2017). "Foreign coaches give sliding teams a push". JoongAng Ilbo. Retrieved 6 March 2018.
10. "Sungbin Yun wins his first ever overall World Cup title in skeleton". International Bobsleigh & Skeleton Federation. 19 January 2018. Retrieved 6 March 2018.
11. "Winter Olympics: South Korea's Yun Sung-bin wins gold in men's skeleton in Pyeongchang". BBC. 16 February 2018. Retrieved 6 March 2018.
12. "Yun Sungbin Has Won South Korea's First Olympic Skeleton Gold". The Times. Associated Press. 16 February 2018. Archived from the original on February 16, 2018. Retrieved 5 March 2018.
13. Kim, Ji-woo (September 30, 2022). "골프왕4' 김국진·장민호·양세형과 굿샷, 골프 여신은?" ['Golf King 4' Kim Gook-jin, Jang Min-ho, Yang Se-hyeong, and a good shot, the golf goddess?] (in Korean). Sports Kyunghyang. Retrieved September 30, 2022 – via Naver.
14. Kim Yu-jin (December 27, 2022). "넷플릭스 서바이벌 게임 예능 '피지컬: 100', 2023년 1월 24일 공개 확정" [Netflix survival game entertainment 'Physical: 100' confirmed to be released on January 24, 2023] (in Korean). X-ports News. Retrieved December 28, 2022 – via Naver.

External links

• Yun Sung-bin at the International Bobsleigh & Skeleton Federation
• Yun Sung-bin at Olympics.com
• Yun Sung-bin at Olympics at Sports-Reference.com (archived)
• YUN Sungbin at PyeongChang 2018 at the Wayback Machine (archived 2018-04-21)