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Kim Taek-soo

Athletes · Tennis · milestone at age 20 ·T2 Field-leading

Milestone (age 20)

Won men's team gold medal and men's doubles bronze at the 1990 Asian Games in Beijing at age 20, establishing himself as a key player on the South Korean national team.

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.

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Starting point

Born in Gwangju, South Korea; family background not well documented; started table tennis at age 11, later than typical peers.

Current position (2025)

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.

How this path compounded

01 Starting advantages

4/24 starting-position score

Strongest documented signals: Elite institution pipeline, Frontier geography, Direct domain exposure.

Describes the starting position, not what the person later made of it.

Cohort percentile: 6

02 Built or converted leverage

11/25 multiplying-capacity score

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.

Cohort percentile: 36

03 Compounding trajectory

7 documented steps

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.

Milestone at age 20

04 Observed career standing

T2 · Field-leading

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.

How tiers work →

Question four · where did the leverage come from?

Kim Taek-soo's leverage provenance

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.

Started serious reps before 201/1

Advantage-enabledmedium confidence

One or more documented starting advantages plausibly enabled this lever.

Elite institution pipeline (1/2)

Prior reps2/3

Advantage-enabledmedium confidence

One or more documented starting advantages plausibly enabled this lever.

Elite institution pipeline (1/2)

Scarce skill depth2/3

Advantage-enabledmedium confidence

One or more documented starting advantages plausibly enabled this lever.

Elite institution pipeline (1/2)

Concentration intensity2/3

Advantage-enabledmedium confidence

One or more documented starting advantages plausibly enabled this lever.

Adversity / constraint catalyst (1/2)

Complementary team1/2

Advantage-enabledmedium confidence

One or more documented starting advantages plausibly enabled this lever.

Elite institution pipeline (1/2)

Domain proximity1/2

Advantage-enabledmedium confidence

One or more documented starting advantages plausibly enabled this lever.

Direct domain exposure (1/2)Frontier geography (1/2)Elite institution pipeline (1/2)

Elite ecosystem network1/3

Advantage-enabledmedium confidence

One or more documented starting advantages plausibly enabled this lever.

Elite institution pipeline (1/2)Frontier geography (1/2)

Structural wave / timing1/3

Externalmedium confidence

A structural wave is external to the person, even when their position improved access to it.

Frontier geography (1/2)

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.

Luck is not a leftover score.

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.

Within Athletes, Kim Taek-soo's starting-advantage total is at the 6th percentile. Separately, their built or converted leverage total is at the 36th percentile. Other T2 profiles average 7.9 / 24 starting advantage and 12.3 / 25 leverage. Similar scores appear in other tiers, so these figures describe positioning—not a cause.

Trajectory

1986 · age 16
Won gold medal at the Asian Junior Table Tennis Championships
Nagoya, Japan.
1987 · age 17
First selected for the South Korean senior national table tennis team
A high school student.
1990 · age 20
Won men's team gold and men's doubles bronze at the Asian Games in Beijing
Also won silver in mixed doubles and bronze in singles at the Asian Table Tennis Championships.
1992 · age 22
Won Olympic singles bronze medal at the Barcelona Olympics
Losing to Jan-Ove Waldner in the final.
1998 · age 28
Won men's singles gold at the Asian Games in Bangkok
Defeating Liu Guoliang in a legendary 32-ball rally.
2004 · age 34
Retired from competitive play and became a coach
For the national team.
2025 · age 55
Appointed head of the Jincheon National Training Center by the Korea Sports Council.

Primary leverage engine

Intensive training and technical precision

Early specialization / prior reps

Secondary engine

National team pipeline

Built/converted leverage

11 / 25

evidence: Medium

Built or converted leverage

Multiplying capacity documented later in the path. Measures what was present, not whether it was inherited, earned, self-built, external, or mixed.

Started serious reps before 20

1/1

Prior reps

2/3

Scarce skill depth

2/3

Native distribution

0/3

Elite ecosystem network

1/3

Complementary team

1/2

Structural wave / timing

1/3

Concentration intensity

2/3

Capital safety

0/2

Domain proximity

1/2

Starting-advantage scores (0–2 each)

Access or conditions documented near the beginning of the path. Zero means "no clear evidence in reviewed sources," not "advantage was absent."

Family financial platform

0/2

Parent / family domain

0/2

Inherited audience / network

0/2

Elite institution pipeline

1/2

Frontier geography

1/2

Rare early tools

0/2

Dedicated mentor / coach

0/2

Exceptional peer / cofounder

0/2

Early online platform

0/2

Direct domain exposure

1/2

Prodigy / innate ability

0/2

Adversity / constraint catalyst

1/2

Family context

Born in Gwangju (formerly Gwangsan-gun), South Korea. Limited documentation of family financial background or parental occupation in reviewed sources.

Parent / family domain

Not documented in reviewed sources.

Archetype & tags

Self-created domain repetitionlate-startintensive-trainingnational-team-pipelinekorea-table-tenniscorporate-team

Evidence summary

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: not_independently_audited · status: subagent_researched_beta

Sources

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