Return to the Olympics as a Referee... ‘Shooting hero’ Lee Eun-cheol “We will prevent Biased Judgments”

Selected as referee for Paris Olympics...

Continuous transformation from the second Barcelona rifle gold medalist in Korean shooting history to a businessman and shooting administrator

Lee Eun-cheol (57), gold medalist in the 50m rifle event at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, is a person who has continuously transformed.

Everyone expected a gold medal, but after only getting a no medal at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, he left for the United States in frustration and majored in computer science at university.

After two years, he returned to the shooting world and won a gold medal in Barcelona.

After playing as a player until 2000, he took advantage of his computer major and started a new life at an information technology (IT) company in Silicon Valley, USA.

After spending the next 20 years in the field as an IT engineer and blockchain and big data expert, he closed down his business in 2022 and returned to the shooting world.

Eun-cheol Lee served as the Chairman of the Performance Improvement Committee of the Korea Shooting Federation last year, and is living the life of a ‘shooting administrator’ as a member of the rifle subcommittee at the International Shooting Federation (ISSF).

He will return to the Olympic stage as a rifle judge at the 2024 Paris Olympics held in July this year.

Lee Eun-cheol is the second Korean to be sent as a referee to an Olympic shooting event. https://www.casinositetop.com

The first case is Korean shooting veteran Park Ki-rim (93), who served as a referee at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

In an interview on the 5th, Lee Eun-cheol said, "Park Ki-rim was our coach.
It is an honor to follow him as an Olympic referee."

He was a member of Korea Telecom (now KT) during his active career, and Park Ki-rim coached players for a long time as a coach of Korea Telecom.

Eun-cheol Lee acquired his international referee certification in 2011, when he was working as a businessman in the IT field.

He said, "I was working as a branch manager for an American company, and he took time off to get his license.

Now that he has retired from that job, he is focusing his attention on shooting."

Fluent in English thanks to his time working in the United States, he took up a position with the ISSF upon returning to the shooting world.

Last year, at the Hangzhou Asian Games, I served as the Technical Delegate, the general manager of the shooting event.

Scores for shooting events such as rifles or pistols are displayed fully automatically.

Although it may not seem like the referee has much to do, there are quite a few things he needs to pay close attention to in order to ensure that all athletes compete under fair conditions.

Eun-cheol Lee explained, "Each player fine-tunes his or her firearm to his or her advantage, and the referee must make sure that the rules are not deviated.

Additionally, he must deal with various unexpected situations that occur during the game."

His goal is to prevent the Korean shooting team from suffering any damage at the Paris Olympics.

Eun-cheol Lee said, "Our athletes have been disadvantaged in many international competitions.

Under the principle of maintaining fairness, we must ensure that our athletes do not suffer any losses.

When we go to international competitions, there are referees from countries that are 'mischievous.'

“I will prevent it,” he said.

Lee Eun-cheol, chairman of the federation's performance improvement committee, is in charge of improving Korea's shooting skills and enhancing its international competitiveness.

Korea, which was known around the world as a shooting powerhouse, fell short of expectations with one silver medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics held in 2021 and two gold medals, four silver medals, and eight bronze medals at last year's Hangzhou Asian Games.

Eun-cheol Lee cited ‘finals anxiety’ as a problem with Korean shooting.

In the shooting event, the winner of the medal is determined through the finals, where multiple shots are fired and the entries are tallied, and then the finals, where one person is eliminated.

He said, "I worked as a broadcast commentator at the Tokyo Olympics.

At that time, 6 people advanced to the finals, but only 1 medal came out.

Then, I was offered the position of chairman of the performance improvement committee by the federation, and I decided to form a team focusing on players who were strong in the finals."

“I thought about it,” he said. https://www.salesforce.com/trailblazer/casinositetop

He added, "It's not that our players' skills have declined.

They're just not ready for the finals. Until now, representative selection was based only on the finals scores, but after I started working, we decided to reflect the finals scores.

It's the finals where medals come out."

The Changwon Asian Shooting Championships was held in October last year, the first competition to select athletes mainly for the finals.

At the competition, Korea performed better than expected with 16 gold medals, 21 silver medals, and 20 bronze medals.

To date, Korea ranks third in Asia with 15 quotas for the Paris Olympics, following China (22) and India (19).

Lee Eun-cheol cheered, "Asia is the strongest in shooting right now.

Thanks to the good results at the Asian Championships, I have high hopes.

I hope to win a gold medal at the Paris Olympics."