Vice Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Jang Jang-ran emphasized that the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Sports Association, which have been at odds over sports policy, should work together to revive South Korean sports, which is facing a crisis after the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Jang gave an interview to Yonhap News Agency on Monday at the Samcheongdong National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Jongno-gu, Seoul, on his one-year anniversary in office.

“Time has flown by unbelievably fast,” Jang said, reflecting on his first year as an administrator, adding that “trying to look at things broadly is a little different than before, and I think I can see things like ‘what should be done now and how should it be done.

A gold medalist in weightlifting at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Jang won a gold, silver, and bronze medal in three Olympics before retiring to teach at Yongin University, where he was appointed vice minister of culture and sports in July 2023, a position that oversees South Korea’s sports and tourism policies.

“Over the past year, I have been working to revitalize school sports clubs and promote sports activities and experiences for students studying at schools,” Jang said, adding, “I have also traveled to various attractive areas in Korea to consider what needs to be done to revitalize tourism.”

Vice Minister Zhang organizes a meeting of spokespersons to promote sports and tourism policies once a week to stay on top of current issues while studying them herself.

With a history of world dominance in the Olympics, Zhang expects the national juniors competing in the Paris Games, which are just a few months away, to perform well.

“Athletes who are good enough to go to the Olympics will know how to take care of their bodies and manage their physical fitness,” Jang said, adding, “Whenever the countdown to the Games starts, if you get impatient, you will overdo it.” He urged the juniors to believe in themselves and prepare for the Olympics with confidence, as they have been able to survive until today.

“I think the KAA has lowered the target too modestly, but I believe our athletes will do very well,” he said, predicting that the country will win more gold and medals than the targeted five.

Moving past lighthearted questions about his first year in office and the outlook for the Paris Olympics, Jang’s expression turned serious when asked about the current situation of the Ministry of Culture and Sports and the KOC, which run in seemingly endless parallel lines.

While Culture Minister Yoo In-chon and KFA President Lee Ki-heung are engaged in an indirect all-out war with the media, Jang, who is an athlete himself, is in a difficult position.

Tensions between the two sides reached a boiling point when the ministry rejected a request to approve an amendment to the articles of association of the Korea Sports Federation to remove term limits for the heads of sports organizations, and the ministry announced that it would bypass the KFA and directly distribute the budget to sports organizations and local sports federations.

The ministry said the direct budget was “one of the ideas that came out of thinking about how to help sports organizations, which are specialized groups in sports, and struggling local sports federations to work independently, as well as support measures for retired athletes and leaders.”

The vice minister reiterated that the MOC’s direct budget is “not set in stone,” adding, “It’s unfortunate how it’s viewed. Issues related to sports policy are matters for the Ministry of Culture and Sports to cooperate with each other, not for debate,” he said.

“From the perspective of athletes, there are many things that they may feel regretful about, but in order to get something satisfactory while I am in charge of this job, athletes must work together,” he said, “and I ask athletes to cooperate in gathering such strength.” He repeatedly called for a solution through dialogue.

In response to a recent claim by the Sports Federation that the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism’s actions were an attempt to infringe on their autonomy with the budget and reminded them of the days of the NIS, Vice Minister Jang strongly refuted the claim, saying, “Times have changed a lot, and I don’t know why such a word came out when there is no intention to do so.”

“For example, we are looking at the problem from the bottom up, seeing that only women’s handball is participating in the Paris Olympics,” said Jang, who has formed a policy council with the Ministry of Education to discuss ways to revitalize school sports and student athletics.

“We have recently started a policy study on how to provide specialized weight and body measurements to help student-athletes continue in elite sports, and how to establish a department in universities to help student-athletes who drop out of sports.”

Just as the Korean Arts Center honors artists for their contributions to cultural development, Jang said, the ministry is also studying how to treat retired athletes by establishing a sports institute as an independent organization or a branch of the arts center.

“I am always thinking about how to give back my talents to society,” Jang said, adding that he will strive to speed up the implementation of physical education at spring schools and policies for retired athletes and leaders. 카지노사이트