Being a star athlete is in the DNA of Byeong Hun An. Born to Olympian parents, he is looking to emulate them at this year’s Paris Olympics.
An’s parents, Jae Hyung Ahn and Zhimin Jiao are both former Olympic athletes who represented South Korea and China respectively in table tennis.
Both competed in just one Olympic Games in 1988 but they came away medals. An’s father won a bronze medal in the men’s doubles category while his mother claimed silver and bronze in women’s doubles and singles.
An himself has achieved stardom in the game of golf, becoming the youngest ever winner of the US Amateur Championship in 2009 before winning the BMW PGA Championship in Wentworth six years later.
This week will An will make his second Olympic appearance and while it may be the fifth biggest event for most of the men competing, for An, it is number one as he looks to go one better than his parents and strike gold at Le Golf National.
“It means I think more than other golfers, I guess. It’s always been my dream to win a medal in the Olympics, and I’ve probably watched the Olympics more than any other golfers than anybody else growing up I guess, my parents being Olympians,” said An who is joined on the Korea team by Tom Kim.
“Hopefully I’ll get some kind of a medal this year but I know they only played it once. So me being here a second time has a little upper hand on them but still no medal yet. Hopefully I get some kind of medal, hopefully Gold because they never had a Gold, so yeah, we’ll see.”
Naturally, An’s favourite sport to watch during the Olympics, which he first watched in 2000 was table tennis. However, when it came to his attention that golf was going to be reinstated back into the Olympics for the 2016 Games it became his mission to win a medal and add to the family history.
“I first watched it, first Olympics that I watched was 2000 I think in Sydney I think, and golf wasn’t in it back then,” the 32-year-old explained.
“I think I just heard a news it was in — when I was like 15, I can’t remember how old I was but golf, I never thought about golf being played in the Olympics and then after 2016, I’m like, that would be cool to get a medal in the Olympics.
“Probably starting 2014 is where I thought, I really want to play in the Olympics and try to get a medal in golf but like I said, growing up, waxing a lot of Olympics over the years, this feels a little more special for me.”
Asia has produced a wealth of golfing talent over the years with KJ Choi, Ryo Ishikawa, Hideki Matsuyama, Sunjae Im, Haotong Li and of course Kim and An.
Matsuyama broke ground in 2021, becoming the first Japanese golfer to win a men’s major and An would love to bring a gold medal back to the continent to further boost Korean golf.
“I think golf, being back at home, because of our history with medals, we’ve never had a Korean golfer win a medal. So I think it would be very big to putt one of our names on that history as part of it.
“You know, just we were so good in different sports, like in our tree we just win a Gold Medal. We are so good in other sports; that if one of us can have a Gold Medal and put ourselves up there on the podium it would be good for our country and show fortunate good chance back in Asia golf is really big.
“I think it would be important for us to step up and be able to secure a medal. It would be huge for not only our country but golf in Asia, I think if we can somehow do something like that would be very big.”