Due to the continued slump in team ball sports, the size of the Korean team participating in the Paris Summer Olympics in July is expected to decrease significantly. As of the 23rd, the only Korean team ball sport that has qualified for the Paris Olympics is women’s handball .In addition, men’s soccer, which has been participating in the Olympics since the 1988 Seoul Olympics, will attempt to advance to the Olympic finals for the 10th consecutive time at the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Under-23 Asian Cup to be held in Qatar in April. Men’s and women’s hockey and men’s and women’s basketball were highly competitive .Women’s volleyball also has a slim chance of advancing to the Olympic finals. Although there is only one medal for a team ball game, due to the nature of many people working together as a team to compete against the world, the team ball game has been a great force in boosting the morale of the Korean athletes and enhancing national unity.
However, at the Paris Olympics, the number of teams participating in Korea’s team ball games decreased to an unprecedented level, raising the possibility that the total number of players would decrease accordingly .When we looked at the number of players on the Korean team at the last five Summer Olympics, the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games, where only four teams participated in team ball sports (women’s volleyball, handball, hockey, and men’s soccer), had the lowest number of 204 players .There was a big difference from the number of players (267) in the 2004 Athens and 2008 Beijing games, where 7 teams participated .At the 2020 Tokyo Games held in 2021, six team ball games were competed and the number of players was 232, which was more than at the 2016 Rio Games.
The official number of events for the Paris Olympics is 32, and if more participation quotas are not secured for new events, it is expected that similar or fewer athletes will board the plane to Paris than at the 2016 Rio Games, where 28 events were held. If the number of players does not exceed 200, there is a possibility that it will be the lowest level in 48 years since the 50 players at the 1976 Montreal Games.Korea sent the largest number of players, 477, to the 1988 Seoul Games held at home .The number of officials is determined in proportion to the number of players. Each country’s athlete squad is determined by combining the number of athletes and officials, and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) usually allocates executive ADs, which allow access to the athletes’ village and stadium, to about half of the number of participating 스포츠토토존 athletes .Executive ADs also include the ADs of coaches and leaders of each sport