Anchor: South Korea's four-man bobsleigh team had its best results ever at the World Championships. The team, made up of Won Yun-jong, Kim Jin-su, Oh Jea-han and Jun Jung-lin, finished fifth at the 2016-2017 International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation(IBSF) World Championships in Lake Placid, New York on Saturday. KBS was there for the second heat of the event.
Our Kim In-kyung has more.
Report: [Sound bite: 2nd heat of 4-man bobsleigh race (Dec. 17 Int'l Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation World Championships)]
The South Korean team kicks off, piloted by Won Yun-jong.
The four-man bobsleigh team passed 20 curves with a maximum speed of 137-point-three kilometers an hour.
Team Korea finished second in the first run with a time of 54-point-12 seconds.
Although it failed to win a medal, South Korea had its best results ever and finished fifth overall with a total time of one-minute 48-point-eight seconds.
Jun Jung-lin, a member of the national bobsleigh team, says Team Korea could be in medal contention in the future as it was only nine-hundredths of a second behind third-place finisher Canada.
[Sound bite: South Korean national bobsleigh team athlete Jun Jung-lin (Korean)]
"We're getting better because our equipment, as well as driving and start techniques, have improved."
Field staff operating the winter event say it's a remarkable growth.
[Sound bite: Field staff in Lake Placid (English)]
"The Korean team, I really had no idea if they trained properly. [But] they hired good coaches, got good sleds and now they are one of the top teams in the world."
Reaching the top in the four-man bobsled had seemed like an insurmountable task for the Korean team as members lacked power compared with foreign athletes.
To boost strength, the South Koreans gained 20 kilograms each and combined their workouts with sprinting.
Their best finish shot up from eleventh last year to fifth this year, raising South Korea's prospects at the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics.
Kim In-kyung, KBS World Radio News.