[Archive] Oh Kwang Hun: “You get nervous in matches, don’t you? That’s why I train hard”

Oh Kwang Hun [Former Head Coach of the South Korea Women’s National Team] Vol. 2

Oh Kwang Hun has 22 years of coaching experience in Japan and 10 years in South Korea. He has walked a long road in his coaching career. Looking at that career alone, the time he spent coaching in Japan was an important one for him. This is Vol. 2 of a solo long interview with Oh Kwang Hun, who resigned as head coach of the South Korea national team after the Paris Olympics. <2024 Interview> OLYMPIC PHOTO Remy Gros

Oh Kwang Hun  Oh Kwang Hun

Born September 9, 1970, in Bucheon, South Korea. He began coaching Seoul Commercial High School as a professional table tennis coach at age 22, and came to Japan at 24, where he served as head coach of Shukutoku Junior College (later Shukutoku University). After that, he became coach of the Japanese women’s national team and head coach of the women’s junior national team. He returned to South Korea in 2017 and, after serving as head coach of a corporate team, became head coach of the South Korea women’s national team in 2022. At the 2024 Paris Olympics, he won two medals in Mixed Doubles and the women’s team event. Currently (2024), he serves as GM of the corporate team “Boram.”

You get nervous in matches, don’t you? So I make training very tough. Once you step into the match hall, it gets easier if you think about what you’ve practiced

●— Mr. Oh, you can speak Japanese perfectly now, but around when did you become able to speak it so well?

Oh Kwang Hun（OH Kwang Hun　hereafter Oh）　When I came to Japan, I only went to Japanese language school for six months. It was a one-year course, but in the end I couldn’t go to school because I was going to matches and training camps. So I only attended for six months.

●— But you wouldn’t get that good just from school, so did you get better every day through practice at Shukutoku?

Oh　I thought that since I was going to coach players on site, conversation was necessary. I needed to become very good at speaking, so I made an effort to memorize words. Also, by talking with the players every day, I gradually got better.

●— Around when did you think, “Okay, I’m fine now”?

Oh　From 2001, I got a little better.

●— At the time, Shukutoku was famous in Japanese table tennis circles for its hard training.

Oh　After all, if training isn’t tough, you get nervous in matches, right? That’s why I train hard. Once you enter the match hall, it gets easier if you think about what you practiced. I used that approach when talking to the players and leading them.

For example, I would talk with the players while training: “You’re good at backhand, so let’s strengthen the attack moving around the ball from backhand-to-backhand into forehand. That will make it easier to score.”

●— Since your days in Seoul, you’ve worked with girls’ high school teams. Then you came to Japan and Shukutoku. It’s been women’s teams all the way, hasn’t it? Didn’t you ever want to coach men?

Oh　I coached men after returning to South Korea in 2017, when I became head coach of a men’s corporate team. It was “Boram Hallelujah” (hereafter, Boram). I did that for five years.