Documented path
Kim was born in Gwangju, South Korea, and started table tennis relatively late in 5th grade (~age 11). He trained intensively, arriving 30 minutes early and leaving 30 minutes late. He won a national championship in his 3rd year of middle school (~age 15), became a youth national team member in high school, and was first selected for the senior national team in 1987 at age 17. He joined the Daewoo corporate team in 1988 and won Asian Games gold in 1990.
Born in Gwangju, South Korea; family background not well documented; started table tennis at age 11, later than typical peers.
Appointed head of Jincheon National Training Center in 2025; former head coach of South Korea's national table tennis team; general manager of Mirae Asset Securities' table tennis team.
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 Taek-soo 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
+2Tailwind
What capability, drive, or early skill is documented in the person rather than their surroundings?
Started table tennis late (~age 11) but compensated with extraordinary dedication — arriving 30 minutes early, leaving 30 minutes late, using eye drops to wake for early training. Won national championship at 15, national team at 17. Exceptional drive and rapid progression.
Where it was dropped
0Neither way
What money, family standing, network, or permission was already in place before the work began?
No specific family advantages or background information available. Ordinary Korean family background with no particular domain connections or resources.
The shape of the track
+2Tailwind
What place, timing, institution, or peer group made the next step available?
South Korean table tennis ecosystem was one of the world's strongest, with a robust national team pipeline and corporate team system. Trained in Sweden at the Ängby Club as a youth, gaining exposure to world-class competition. Korean corporate team structure (Daewoo) supported his career.
A −1 is a documented headwind, not a missing value; a 0 means the sources record nothing notable either way. Annotation confidence: Medium. 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, Frontier geography, Direct domain exposure.
Describes the starting position, not what the person later made of it.
Strongest observed levers: Started serious reps before 20, Prior reps, Scarce skill depth.
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.
Dominant figure at the top of a field. The tier summarizes documented career recognition through the data cutoff—not Kim Taek-soo'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 Taek-soo'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 Gwangju (formerly Gwangsan-gun), South Korea. Limited documentation of family financial background or parental occupation in reviewed sources.
Not documented in reviewed sources.
Kim started table tennis later than peers (~age 11 vs 8-9) but compensated with extreme dedication, using eye drops to wake for early training sessions. He progressed through the Korean national team pipeline, reaching the senior national team at 17 in 1987. South Korea's strong table tennis ecosystem and corporate team system (Daewoo) provided institutional support. No family domain advantage or financial platform was documented. His late start created urgency that drove his intensive training regimen, which Chinese experts later praised as 'the most perfect technique.'
advantage confidence: Medium · source count: 4 · audit: partial_source_verification · status: subagent_researched_beta