Yeo Seo-jeong (Jecheon City Hall), a leading figure in South Korean women's gymnastics, has been named the Most Valuable Player (MVP) of the 107th National Sports Festival.
The Korean Sports Council announced on the 22nd that Yeo received 30 out of 56 votes (53.6%) from the festival's press corps, securing the MVP title.
Yeo is the third gymnast to win the MVP award at the National Sports Festival, following Kim Kyung-hoon in 1986 and Sung Ji-hye in 2012, marking the first time in 14 years that a gymnast has received this honor.
During the festival, Yeo won a total of six medals: four gold, one silver, and one bronze, achieving the best results among all competitors in the general division. Gymnastics events were held as preliminary competitions at the Jeju Halla Gymnasium before the opening ceremony.
On October 7, Yeo topped the individual all-around competition with a score of 52.966. She also contributed to her team’s silver medal in the team all-around with a score of 190.000. On October 9, she dominated the vault (14.083), balance beam (13.233), and floor exercise (13.000), completing her four-gold achievement. She added a bronze medal in the uneven bars (12.700), medaling in every event she entered.
Yeo outperformed fellow athletes Kim Seo-young (Gyeongbuk Provincial Office) and Kim Young-beom (Gangwon Provincial Office), both of whom also achieved four gold medals in swimming, as well as Hwang Sun-woo (Gangwon Provincial Office), who secured four golds in official events and one in a demonstration event.
Hwang, who aimed to tie the record for the most MVP awards with five alongside Park Tae-hwan, will have to wait for another opportunity to achieve this milestone.
Yeo is the daughter of Yeo Hong-cheol, a silver medalist in the vault at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and the current executive director of the Korean Gymnastics Association. She won a bronze medal in the vault at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and claimed gold in the vault at both the 2018 Jakarta-Palembang and 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games. Yeo is the first South Korean female gymnast to win two gold medals at the Asian Games.
Yeo will receive a prize of 5 million won and a trophy from the Korean Sports Council for her MVP achievement.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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