Former lawmaker Lee Yong returns as Korea’s bobsleigh and skeleton head coach after six years

Lee Yong is returning to South Korea’s sled sports after six years, taking charge again of the national bobsleigh and skeleton teams.

The Korea Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation said Lee applied through an open recruitment process, passed document and interview reviews by its performance committee, and received approval from the Korea Sport & Olympic Committee on the first day of the month.

Lee, 48, entered politics after winning a proportional-representation seat in the 2020 parliamentary election. Before that, he competed as a member of South Korea’s luge national team at the 1998 Nagano and 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics. In 2011, he succeeded Kang Kwang-bae as head of the bobsleigh and skeleton teams.

His most prominent coaching achievement came at the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics. Under his direction, skeleton racer Yun Sung-bin won gold and South Korea’s four-man bobsleigh team took silver. Those were the country’s first Olympic medals in either event.

After becoming a lawmaker, Lee served as an aide accompanying presidential candidate Yoon Suk Yeol during the 2022 election. He later ran unsuccessfully in Hanam, Gyeonggi province, in the 2024 general election and this year’s by-election. South Korea’s sled teams have not won a medal at either of the two Olympics since PyeongChang. At the 2026 Milan-Cortina Games, skeleton racer Jung Seung-gi finished 10th and the four-man bobsleigh team led by Kim Jin-su placed eighth.