[Asia Economy Intern Reporter Hee-eun Park] The 'Queen of Table Tennis' Hyun Jung-hwa has been revealed to be fully dedicated to nurturing the next generation. She also opened up about the drunk driving accident she caused six years ago.
On the 31st, MBC's 'People Are Good' aired a segment featuring Hyun Jung-hwa, who is coaching players as a supervisor at the Korea Racing Authority.
Hyun Jung-hwa started playing table tennis in the 3rd grade of elementary school and ranked first in the national team selection during her first year of high school. She won the gold medal in women's doubles alongside Yang Young-ja at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, where table tennis was adopted as an official event.
She dominated all events (singles, doubles, team, mixed doubles) at the World Championships within eight years as a national representative.
Hyun Jung-hwa retired at the age of 26 and has since devoted herself to nurturing talent by serving as a coach for corporate teams and as a national team supervisor since 1996.
On this day, Hyun Jung-hwa mentioned the 'drunk driving accident' from 2014. At that time, she collided with a commercial taxi in a drunk state in Bundang, Gyeonggi Province.
Regarding this, Hyun Jung-hwa said, "Regardless of the reason, it was an incident where I was absolutely at fault."
She added, "It was something that should never have happened. I felt sorry to many people. It hurt my heart to know that I disappointed many who had expectations of me."
At the time, she publicly released a handwritten letter of apology and resigned from her position as the head of the athletes' village.
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