Documented path
Kim was selected for the South Korean national table tennis team in 1980 at age 18. He won the Asian Games silver medal in doubles at New Delhi in 1982 at age 20, and became the first Korean male to reach the World Championship singles quarterfinal in 1983 at age 21. He won the Olympic silver medal in singles at the 1988 Seoul Olympics at age 26.
Born in South Korea; lived with fellow table tennis player Choi Sun-ho during youth; family background otherwise not documented in reviewed sources.
Retired from competitive table tennis in 1989; later served as coach for the national team and Samsung Life table tennis team; currently age 63.
Where the conditions came from
Each is placed on a −1 to 3 scale from documented evidence, and the three are never added together. A combined total would rank Kim Ki-taik against other people. Held apart, they explain why this path ran differently from another one—which is the only comparison this project supports.
The marble itself
+1Tailwind
What capability, drive, or early skill is documented in the person rather than their surroundings?
Good table tennis player selected for the South Korean national team at 18. Won Asian Games silver at 20 and Olympic silver at 26. Solid but not exceptional — no evidence of prodigy-level early achievement.
Where it was dropped
0Neither way
What money, family standing, network, or permission was already in place before the work began?
Born in Cheongju, South Korea. Started table tennis in 5th grade at Hanbyeol Elementary. No particular family wealth or domain connections documented. Limited information on family background.
The shape of the track
+2Tailwind
What place, timing, institution, or peer group made the next step available?
South Korean national table tennis team system provided elite training and competition. Samsung Life professional team offered institutional support. Korea's strong table tennis pipeline and the 1988 Seoul Olympics provided a competitive platform.
A −1 is a documented headwind, not a missing value; a 0 means the sources record nothing notable either way. Annotation confidence: Low. These are analyst readings of what the sources record, not measurements of merit, talent, or effort. The twenty-two scored dimensions remain available inside the deeper research detail.
What moved through the conditions
This records repeated behaviour or recovery described by sources; it is not a grit or merit score.
This is an unchosen opening or condition in the record, not an estimate of how much luck caused the outcome.
Strongest documented signals: Elite institution pipeline, Direct domain exposure, Frontier geography.
Describes the starting position, not what the person later made of it.
Strongest observed levers: Domain proximity, Started serious reps before 20, Prior reps.
Measures what was present, not whether it was inherited, earned, self-built, external, or mixed.
The timeline below shows the sequence of work and transitions around the selected early milestone. It is evidence of a path, not proof that every step was necessary.
Notable and widely recognized within the domain. The tier summarizes documented career recognition through the data cutoff—not Kim Ki-taik's worth or future potential.
Question four · where did the leverage come from?
Each non-zero lever gets a best-supported origin, evidence signals, and confidence. Unresolved is the honest default when the biography cannot distinguish self-built, advantage-enabled, earned, external, or mixed.
One or more documented starting advantages plausibly enabled this lever.
One or more documented starting advantages plausibly enabled this lever.
One or more documented starting advantages plausibly enabled this lever.
One or more documented starting advantages plausibly enabled this lever.
One or more documented starting advantages plausibly enabled this lever.
One or more documented starting advantages plausibly enabled this lever.
One or more documented starting advantages plausibly enabled this lever.
A structural wave is external to the person, even when their position improved access to it.
This is a bounded inference from the current annotations—not a claim about private effort, merit, or the percentage of Kim Ki-taik's outcome attributable to any origin.
Structural luck, Encounter luck, Event luck, Outcome variance can change every arrow in the path. This successful-only dataset cannot observe the near-identical paths that did not break through, so luck stays visible and unscored.
Multiplying capacity documented later in the path. Measures what was present, not whether it was inherited, earned, self-built, external, or mixed.
Access or conditions documented near the beginning of the path. Zero means "no clear evidence in reviewed sources," not "advantage was absent."
Born in South Korea; lived with fellow table tennis player Choi Sun-ho during youth, suggesting a sports-oriented environment. Family background not otherwise documented.
Not documented in reviewed sources.
Kim was selected for the South Korean national table tennis team in 1980 at age 18 and won an Asian Games silver medal in doubles at 20 in 1982. He became the first Korean male to reach the World Championship singles quarterfinal in 1983. His development was facilitated by South Korea's national team system and the Samsung Life professional team structure, though specific family background details are not documented in reviewed sources.
advantage confidence: Medium · source count: 3 · audit: source_verified · status: subagent_researched_beta