Asian Games, Medal Hopeful Park Jeong-ah

Asian Games Medal Hopeful Park Jeong-ah

Kim Yeon-kyung, captain of the Korean women's volleyball team after retiring from the national team, has a bleak medal outlook, but hopes are high on Park Jeong-ah's 'clutch ability' 온라인카지노

Kim Yeon-kyung (35, Heungkuk Life Insurance), who is watching the Hangzhou Asian Games from the broadcaster's seat rather than the court, feels sad remembering the heavy burden carried by Park Jeong-ah (30, Pepper Savings Bank).

Kim Yeon-kyung put down her Taegeuk mark after the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.

The Korean women's volleyball team's captain's armband, which had belonged to Kim Yeon-kyung for a long time, has been worn by Park Jeong-ah since 2022.

After Kim Yeon-kyung's retirement from the national team, Korean women's volleyball fell sharply.

They lost all 12 games in the 2022 International Volleyball Federation (FIVB) Volleyball Nations League (VNL), and suffered the humiliation of losing all 12 games in this year's VNL.

At the Asian Volleyball Championships, they failed to advance to the semifinals for the first time in history and fell to 6th place.

Park Jung-ah, who enjoyed the joy of winning the 2014 Incheon Asian Games and reaching the semifinals of the 2021 Tokyo Olympics as the ‘youngest member of Kim Yeon-kyung and the golden generation’, is enduring pain as the ‘captain of the post-Kim Yeon-kyung era’.

Park Jeong-ah said in an interview last May, "As the seniors who led the national team for a long time retired from the national team, we were unable to show the performance that fans wanted in last year's international competition.

However, the painful experience is also an experience," he said.

"Having gained experience last year, I will be able to show much better performance this year."

Park Jung-ah's wish did not come true in the VNL and Asian Championships.

The Hangzhou Asian Games were held this year in the Korean women's volleyball team.

This is your last chance to restore your honor.

Park Jung-ah serves as the team's focal point both on the court and in the locker room.

Before Kim Yeon-kyung retired from her national team, Park Jeong-ah was paired with Kim Yeon-kyung and took charge of her wing attack.

With the match between Korea and Japan at the Tokyo Olympics tied at 12-14 in the 5th set, Park Jeong-ah used consecutive attacks to make it 14-14 deuce.

Even when the score was down 15-14 due to Japan's mistake, Park Jeong-ah completed a dramatic comeback victory with a successful finishing attack.

At the 2014 Incheon Asian Games, where she won the gold medal, Park Jung-ah had the second largest offensive share after Kim Yeon-kyung.

Among the Korean women's volleyball team that participated in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, Park Jeong-ah was the fifth youngest.

However, seniors who had been Park Jeong-ah's umbrella, including Kim Yeon-kyung, Kim Su-ji (Heungkuk Life Insurance), and Yang Hyo-jin (Hyundai Engineering & Construction), all left the national team, and even Kim Hee-jin (IBK Industrial Bank of Korea) failed to join the Hangzhou national team due to the aftereffects of an injury.

Now, Park Jeong-ah leads her juniors who have shared her painful experience, and focuses her efforts on the rebound of Korean women's volleyball.

Her nickname for Park Jeong-ah is ‘Clutch Park.’

She soared and scored at key moments in the domestic V-League and international competitions.

She also signed the largest contract ever for a Korean women's professional volleyball player with a three-year contract with Pepper Savings Bank worth a total of 2.325 billion won.

“Everyone trained hard for the Asian Games medal,” Park Jung-ah said.

“We have a great desire to achieve the goal, so if we all work hard together, there will be good results,” she said.

Although she is no longer confident of winning an Asian Games medal, if ‘Clutch Park’ Park Jeong-ah’s decisiveness shines in Hangzhou, Korean women’s volleyball can also reach an inflection point.