From childhood asthma to Olympic late bloomer, South Korea's first medal in 2026 is true underdog story

When speculation swirled over who would deliver South Korea's first medal at the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics, few imagined the answer would be Kim Sang-kyum: a 37-year-old snowboard Alpine veteran who had spent most of his career far from the spotlight.

The snowboarder secured a shocking silver medal in the men's parallel giant slalom event on Sunday. After advancing through his first two knockout rounds when his opponents failed to finish, Kim edged Bulgaria's Tervel Zamfirov by 0.23 second in the semifinals, before settling for silver with a loss by just 0.19 second to reigning Olympic champion Benjamin Karl of Austria.

With his historic feat, Kim became only the second South Korean snowboarder to win an Olympic medal, following Lee Sang-ho, who claimed silver in the same event at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Games.

Kim's silver also carried historic weight, marking South Korea's 400th Olympic medal across both the Summer and Winter Games, as well as the country's 80th medal at the Winter Olympics.

Kim began snowboarding in middle school after turning to sports to overcome childhood asthma.

Although snowboard Alpine offers little visibility or stability in Korea, Kim stayed the course even as the sport grew younger and faster.

Rather than opting to dramatically change his riding style or copying younger snowboarders' techniques, Kim leaned into consistency: controlled speed, clean runs and honing the skill to avoid costly mistakes.

However, Kim's dedication to the sport was built long before his late-career breakthrough.

After graduating from Korea National Sport University in 2011, Kim struggled to secure a place on a corporate-sponsored team and supported his training by working part-time and manual labor jobs to cover basic expenses such as equipment and travel.

Kim's long search for stability ended in 2019, when he joined the High1 Ski Team — Korea's first corporate-backed team dedicated to Alpine skiing and snowboarding — and was able to train full time for the first time in his career.

"I gave everything I had with the goal of winning a medal, and I'm really happy that the result followed," Kim told the press after winning silver. "I would give my riding score for today a 90 out of 100."

This was Kim's fourth Olympic appearance. Yet, he had never sat higher than 15th and had reached the knockout stage only once in his previous three Games.

Kim arrived in Italy without a single FIS World Cup victory to his name — his career resume limited to a runner-up finish and once placing third — and without a single podium across nine world championship appearances.

Kim entered the Milan Cortina Games ranked just 20th in the FIS World Cup standings this season.

President Lee Jae Myung offered his congratulations to the snowboarder.

"Kim spent years grinding through harsh, icy slopes for races decided in barely a minute and often by mere fractions of a second. He finally reached the Olympic podium on his fourth attempt," Lee wrote via Facebook on Monday.