Korea’s three head coaches walk away
Korea won a world title at +78kg in Baku through Lee Hyun-ji this autumn and came home from the Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya with one gold, three silvers and four bronzes. Within weeks, both national head coaches and a third member of staff were gone. Jung Sung-sook, the women’s head coach, Hwang Hee-tae, the men’s head coach, and Miki Tanaka all ended their appointments when their contracts expired on 31 October, and the Korea Judo Association insists that none of them was dismissed.
The association’s version is that each coach chose not to seek an extension, and a member of the outgoing staff told JudoInside the decisions were individual and taken in different circumstances rather than a collective exit over one incident. One staff member had informed the association before the Asian Games that they would not continue, for personal reasons. Hwang Hee-tae ended his appointment independently of results or of what followed. Jung Sung-sook, by contrast, accepted responsibility for the weigh-in incident and chose not to continue in her position.
The 100 grams that changed the mood
That incident involved U48kg judoka Jung Su-jin, who passed the official weigh-in the day before her competition, ate on the morning of the event, and then learned she had been selected for a random check. She was 100 grams over and was disqualified. The association says she had been given incorrect information and that the error lay with the coaching staff, not the athlete. Her six month international competition restriction has since been lifted by the Performance Improvement Committee, and she is to receive psychological support through the Sports Science Institute. An investigation into how the case was handled is still open and no disciplinary decisions have been announced, so the full picture is not yet public.
One of the departing coaches was explicitly cleared by the association, a staff member confirmed to JudoInside, because that coach was not part of the Asian Games delegation at all and had been assigned to the athletes at the World Championships instead. The timing of the three departures, in other words, says less about one weigh-in than it looks.
Who takes Korea to Tokyo and the Masters
Korean national contracts follow the cycle from one Olympic Games to the Asian Games and on towards the next Games, so a turnover at this point is normal; a complete one is not. The association has extended men’s coaches Cho Gu-ham and Shim Ji-ho and women’s coach Kwon Young-woo until 31 December to cover the Grand Slam in Tokyo on 5 and 6 December and the World Masters from 18 to 21 December. Recruitment for the new staff runs from 2 November to 3 December, with the appointments due to start in January 2027. Their brief is Los Angeles 2028, with a reigning world champion in Lee Hyun-ji and an Olympic silver medallist and world champion in Mimi Huh already in the squad, and a lighter weight division that will want to forget Nagoya quickly.
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