Cho Min Song

Cho Min Sung was born on March 21, 1972.

The first serious success at the adult international level was in 1988, when she got into the main team of the Korean national team and attended the Asian Championships in Damascus, from where she brought the bronze dignity award won in the super lightweight category. She participated in the home Olympic Games program in Seoul and won a bronze medal in the under 48 kg category, although female judo was present here only as an indicative sport .

In 1989, Cho performed at the World Championships in Yugoslav Belgrade, where she became a bronze medalist in the featherweight category - defeated all rivals except Italian Alessandra Junji at the 1/8 final stage. A year later, rose to lightweight and added to the track record bronze obtained at the Asian Games in Beijing.

At the 1993 Asian Championships in Macau, she was already middleweight - she defeated all her opponents and won the gold medal. She performed equally well at the world championship in Canadian Hamilton, where she was also the best, in particular, in the finals she prevailed over US representative Lilico Ogasawara . The next season, she won a silver medal at the Asian Games in Hiroshima - in the decisive match she was defeated by Japanese Aiko Oishi . In 1995, in the middleweight division, she won bronze at the Asian Championships in New Delhi, won the world championships in Chiba and, as a student, won the summer Universiade in Fukuoka.

Thanks to a series of successful performances, Cho Min Sung won the right to defend the country's honor at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta - she confidently passed all her rivals and thereby won the Olympic gold medal. A year later, at the world championship in Paris, she was awarded a bronze medal, suffered the only defeat here at the stage of the semi-finals from Briton Kate Howie . Being among the leaders of the South Korean judo team, she successfully qualified for the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games - she tried to repeat the success of four years ago, but lost the Sibelis Veranes Cuban in the semifinals and was forced to be satisfied with the bronze Olympic award.

After the Sydney Olympics, Cho for some time remained in the main team of the Korean national team and continued to take part in major international tournaments. So, in 2001, she fought at the Seville Grand Prix, lost the quarterfinal match and took the final fifth place. Soon after the end of these competitions, she decided to end the career of a professional athlete, giving way to young Korean judokas in the national team.

He is currently a professor at the Korea National Sports University, an international referee ^{[1] [2]} .

• Cho Min Sung - Olympic Stats at Sports-Reference.com
• Cho Min Sung - profile on judoinside.com