Lee Sang-hwa Wiki: 5 Facts To Know About 2018 Olympics Silver Medalist Skater

Lee Sang-hwa is a South Korean speed skater who specializes in the sprint distances. She is a two-time Olympic champion in 500 m (2010 and 2014) and also the 2010 World Sprint champion. She has also won three World Championships medals in 500 m, and has been placed amongst the top three in World Cup events for four times in this speed skating. Lee Sang-hwa was born in 1989 to parents, Lee U-geun (father) and Kim In-sun (mother). Lee has an older brother, Lee Sang-jun, who was a skater, too. She got influenced into speed skating by her brother and took up the sport when she was just in the first grade. Lee is currently studying at the Korea National Sport University. Lee first competed internationally at the age of 14 in Canada. She won most of the races quite comfortably. She achieved her first ISU championship in Roseville, Minnesota, during the 2004 World Junior Championships. Many small and large competitions followed after that and she achieved the fifth overall ranking. In other achievements, she won two senior Korean titles and came 14th in the 500 metres World Cup standings, 16th in the 1000 metres, and 15th in the samalog standings in the World Sprint Championships, although her margin was just half a second behind the winner in both 500 metre races, finishing 9th and 12th. In the World Championships, Lee won three medals that season; two in the junior championships, where she won bronze medal in the overall standings. And during the World Single Distance Championships in Inzell in March, two fourth-places were enough to take her to third place overall ranking in the 500 metre competition, just behind Chinese skaters Wang Manli and Wang Beixing. She also added three senior Korean titles to her record in the later years, winning the 500 metres, 1000 metres, and overall sprint championship. The Turin Olympics ended with fifth place for Lee Sang-hwa. The 2007 season saw improvement in Sang-hwa. At the 2010 Winter Olympics, Lee won her first Olympic gold medal in the women's 500 m becoming the first Asian woman ever to do so. Sang-hwa became the 2010 World Sprint Champion that year. On 9 November 2013, she broke the world record on 500 metres in the 2013–14 World Cup event in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. On 11 February 2014, she won her second Olympic gold medal in the women's 500 m at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics with an Olympic record of 74.70 seconds and successfully defended her crown from the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver. The Olympic Champion competed in the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in Pyeongchang, and won the silver medal, which was also her third Olympic medal, in front of her home crowd. The 2018 Olympic Winter Games rendered a very touching moment to the spectators when Sang-hwa was comforted by her rival at the time of her victory.

The net worth of the skater is currently unavailable.

Lee Sang-hwa is quite active on her Instagram and Twitter accounts. She is available on Instagram @sanghwazz and on her Twitter handle @speed_sanghwa.