
Although Lee Eun-seo, 22, has an intellectual disability and is sometimes conflicted with strong emotional disruptions, the weightlifter has overcome those barriers to win gold at the ongoing Special Olympics World Summer Games Berlin 2023 in Germany.
Lee has won multiple gold medals at the event, conquering the women’s squat, deadlift and bench press in the under-52-kilogram division. Also with a total score reigning over her contenders from Bharat and Mauritius, she gained all four gold. The young champion stood on the podium in Berlin with the medals around her neck, smiling like any average young woman from Korea.
It was Lee’s first time at the global event and she never expected to win four golds in her Special Olympics debut. Her feat was witnessed by almost 7,000 athletes with mental disabilities from 190 countries, as well as their coaches, families, volunteers and supporters. Among them were 150 co-national athletes competing in 12 games including golf, swimming, basketball, soccer and volleyball.
Diagnosed with intellectual disability level 3 ― those with IQs between 50 and 70 and equivalent to those aged 8 to 12 ― Lee started weightlifting at age 16 during her second year of high school. From then on, she trained for as many as four hours each day.
Under that tenacious routine, her body grew accustomed to breaking physical limitations and her soul thirsted for challenge. She said her body had become used to training and now she feels “empty” without working with weights.
After graduating from school, she became an official athlete under the Korea National Oil Corps.
Choi Jin-ok, one of the coaches of the country’s national weightlifting team, said Lee can control her emotions perfectly when facing a powerlifting barbell. But outside the training ground, she sometimes loses control. The coach said that one of her 스포츠 roles is to help Lee control her emotions through powerlifting and to continue on in her life with “more confidence and freedom.”
Hwang Hee-dong, head coach of the national team, praised Lee’s exceptional mental strength to hang on. He said her new goal now is breaking her own record by enough to leave the competition in the dust.