Anchor: South Korea is sending a record number of athletes to the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. In the first part of our series on Team Korea, Kim Soyon tells us about some of the athletes hoping to bring home hardware from the games.
 
Report: The 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia begin next Friday. Team Korea aims to win at least four gold medals to finish in the top ten for the third straight Winter Games.
 
Korea made its Winter Olympic debut at the 1948 games in St. Moritz, Switzerland. More than 60 years later in 2010, South Korea finished an impressive fifth at the Vancouver games.
 
This year it's sending a record 64 athletes to Sochi, nearly a third of which are competing in sledding events.
 
Ten Koreans will compete in bobsleigh and two in skeleton, including Yoon Sung-bin. Yoon has only competed in skeleton for a year and a half, but he won silver at the Confederations Cup in Austria last December and silver the month before that at the American Cup.
 
South Korea will also send four athletes to compete in luge, the nation’s Olympic debut in the sport.
 
As many Korean athletes prepare to compete for their first gold medal, previous Olympic champions such as figure skater Kim Yu-na are eyeing to top the podium again.
 
Two-time Olympic gold medalist Katarina Witt katarina Witt says Kim, who won the gold in Vancouver in 2010, will repeat as champion in Sochi.
 
[Soundbite: Katarina Witt (1984, 1988 Figure Skating Gold Medalist]
"She has a hundred percent chance to win gold. She is definitely would deserve to be the one winning the second Olympic gold. She is a perfect skater, perfect body for skating and she has a heart. You will be flying over the ice. Good luck." 
 
Speed skater Lee Sang-hwa is also after her second straight Winter Olympic gold, and many predict speed skater Mo Tae-bum will win both the men's 500 and 1,000 meter races.
 
But medaling in short track speed skating, Korea’s traditional stronghold, will be especially challenging this year. 
 
Korean skaters overall performance leading up to the games has been lacking and skater Noh Jin-kyu is fighting cancer. Also, in an ironic twist, the Korean team must face the 2006 Turin Olympic triple champion Ahn Hyun-soo, who became a Russian citizen in 2011 following a dispute with Korea's skating association. He will compete for Russia in the Sochi games under his new name Viktor Ahn. 
 
Still, the Associated Press predicts South Korea's Shim Suk-hee will win three golds in short track in Sochi. The AP also said Kim Yu-na and long track speed skater Lee Sang-hwa will win gold.
 
Kim Soyon, KBS World Radio News.