Former Yoon aide Lee Yong returns to sled sports as national team head coach after six years

Lee Yong, once known in South Korean politics as Yoon Suk Yeol’s “bodyguard,” is returning to the ice after six years away. The former People Power Party lawmaker will take charge of the country’s bobsleigh and skeleton national teams as head coach.

The Korea Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation said Lee applied through an open recruitment process. He passed the Performance Enhancement Committee’s document and interview reviews last month, then received approval from the Korean Sport & Olympic Committee on the first of this month.

Lee brings both Olympic experience and a proven coaching record. He competed for South Korea in luge at the 1998 Nagano and 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics. After retiring as an athlete, he became a coach and led the bobsleigh and skeleton teams from 2011. At the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics, he guided Yun Sung-bin to the men’s skeleton gold medal and South Korea’s four-man bobsleigh team to silver, helping lead what the article describes as the peak of Korean sled sports.

He entered politics after winning a proportional-representation seat in the 2020 parliamentary election with the Future Korea Party. During the 2022 presidential election, he served as Yoon’s aide responsible for accompanying him and became known among politicians as Yoon’s “bodyguard.” Lee later lost consecutive elections in Hanam, Gyeonggi Province, including the 2024 general election and this year’s parliamentary by-election.

South Korea’s sled teams have failed to win another Olympic medal since PyeongChang. At the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics this year, Jung Seung-gi finished 10th in men’s skeleton, while Kim Jin-su’s four-man bobsleigh team placed eighth.