"They don't want to do physical training, they just want to learn skills... We're in trouble."

"It's a big problem, we have to go to the Olympics, but there are no athletes...." Jang Jae-geun (62), the head of the Jincheon National Athletes' Village, who is traveling to France to inspect the preparations for the Paris Olympics, let out a sigh on the phone on the 26th. With the men's soccer team also failing to make it to Paris, the number of athletes sent to the Games is expected to shrink to around 150. "It shouldn't be a big setback for the medal tally, but this (150) may be a hopeful number," he said. Jang is a track and field legend who won back-to-back 200-meter titles at the 1982 New Delhi and 1986 Seoul Asian Games.

Jang blames "too much complacency" for the overall stagnation of South Korean sports and lack of international competitiveness. "I know that when Shin Tae-yong went to Indonesia to try to create something new, he introduced a lot of basic programs from his playing days," he said, citing football as an example. "On the other hand, we neglect the basics and physical training. Basic physical training is something you have to do endlessly during your playing days, but when we think we've reached a certain 'level,' we ignore it and try to learn more advanced techniques." In fact, when Shin took over as head coach of the Indonesian national soccer team, he set out to improve his squad's fitness, creating a training timetable that was broken down to the minute and strictly adhered to.

"There is a prevailing attitude that basic training is old-fashioned, but we need to realize that the old days are precious," he said. "It's one thing to embrace advanced technology, but it's useless if you don't have the physical foundation to utilize it." "The domestic professional league has long since become a 'foreign (mercenary) monopoly' because they are concerned with return on investment," he added. This, he argued, contributes to the decline of domestic players' skills.

He revived the dawn workout after taking over as chief in March last year. He acknowledges that it doesn't directly improve performance. "But I think it helps to improve our mental strength as a national team. The mind controls the body," he said, adding, "What's the point of saying 'world-class athletes train like this' if their skills are not world-class in the first place." That's why, during last year's Asian Games training, China temporarily shut down late-night Wi-Fi after hearing that athletes were not getting enough rest because they were playing games on their phones at night.

"We don't emphasize, 'Run for the country now,'" Zhang said. They say, 'Run for your dreams, run for your goals,'" he said. "If you run for yourself, you become a national athlete, and if you become a national athlete, you wear the flag, and that's what you do for the country." He agreed that Korean sports are in a crisis, and instead of assigning blame, we should work together to find solutions. "We should criticize and find ways to make changes. If we criticize without an exit, athletes will get frustrated and fall," he said.