황영조
Marathon gold medalist at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics
| Life | 1970 |
| Era | 현대 |
| Clan | 평해 황씨 |
Life & career
Hwang Young-cho is a South Korean marathon runner born on 22 March 1970 in Geundeok-myeon, Samcheok County, Gangwon Province. Korean Wikipedia states his clan seat as Pyeonghae, and the English Wikipedia entry on the Pyeonghae Hwang clan lists him among its notable members. The hanja for his name could not be confirmed from sources, so it is left blank here.
He won the marathon at the 1991 Summer Universiade and was runner-up at the Beppu-Oita marathon in February 1992. In August that year he won the gold medal in the marathon at the Barcelona Olympics, the first Korean Olympic marathon gold since Son Gi-jeong in 1936, 56 years earlier, and the first since the founding of the Republic of Korea. With a final sprint up the steep Montjuic hill he left Japan's Koichi Morishita and a German runner far behind, and after collapsing at the finish he took a Korean flag and ran a lap of the track, which is why he is called the Hero of Montjuic. The elderly Son Gi-jeong is said to have watched from the stands.
He won the marathon at the 1994 Asian Games, and in the same year set a Korean best of 2:08:09 at the Boston Marathon. After his competitive career he worked as head of the Korea Sports Promotion Foundation marathon team (2000), a director of the Korean Sport and Olympic Committee (2001) and a commentator on the Olympic marathon (2004). A monument to his victory stands in front of the Olympic stadium in Barcelona. As he is a living person, only publicly reported career facts are given.
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