Lee Yu-Bin is a short track speed skater who won a gold medal at the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics as part of the South Korean 3000m relay team. In February 2020 she grabbed her first individual senior World Cup gold medal at the age of 18, finishing .48 seconds ahead of China’s Zhang Chutong in the 1000m in a huge step forwards in her senior international career. She is now training eight and a half hours a day as she focusses on winning her first individual Olympic medal at the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022.
Born in Bucheon, South Korea, she took up short track speed skating when she was eight years old inspired by her older brother Lee June-Seo who won silver at the 2018 World Junior Championship. She rose to prominence after winning Overall at the World Junior Championships in 2016, and since then she has collected more than a dozen medals at major international competitions.
Her Olympic debut came in 2018 at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympic Games, when she clinched the gold medal in the 3000m along with Shim Suk-hee, Choi Min-jeong and Kim Ye-jin Lee Yu-bin at the Gangneung Ice Arena in Gangneung, South Korea. After picking up her first individual gold medal at the World Cup in Dordrecht at the start of 2020, she will be one to watch in Beijing in 2022.