Documented path
Lee Yong-dae started playing badminton at age 8 at his local elementary school in Hwasun, initially to lose weight. He joined the South Korean national badminton team at age 15 in 2003, while attending Hwasun Middle School. He won three gold medals at the 2006 World Junior Championships and earned his first international title at the Thailand Open the same year. By 2008, he had won Olympic gold in mixed doubles with Lee Hyo-jung and the All England title, becoming a household name in South Korea.
Born on September 11, 1988, in Hwasun, South Jeolla, South Korea, Lee began playing badminton at age 8 to lose weight.
Continues to compete professionally in badminton, having returned to competition in 2019 after a brief retirement.
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 Lee Yong-dae 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 badminton at 8 to lose weight. National team at 15. Olympic gold in mixed doubles at 19 — youngest Olympic badminton champion from South Korea. Three gold medals at 2006 World Junior Championships. Exceptional early achievement in badminton.
Where it was dropped
0Neither way
What money, family standing, network, or permission was already in place before the work began?
Mother signed him up for badminton club to lose weight. Rural Hwasun County in South Jeolla Province. No family badminton connections or wealth. Working-class rural background with no domain inheritance.
The shape of the track
+2Tailwind
What place, timing, institution, or peer group made the next step available?
South Korean national badminton pipeline — entered national team at 15. Coach Kang Kyung-jin. Partnerships with world-class players (Jung Jae-sung, Lee Hyo-jung, Yoo Yeon-seong). Hwasun County later built a stadium and memorial hall in his name, showing local investment in badminton.
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
Silence in a biography is not evidence that perseverance was absent.
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, Exceptional peer / cofounder, Prodigy / innate ability.
Describes the starting position, not what the person later made of it.
Strongest observed levers: Prior reps, Complementary team, Domain proximity.
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 Lee Yong-dae'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.
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 Lee Yong-dae'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."
Little is documented about Lee's family background beyond that he grew up in Hwasun, South Jeolla Province, a rural area of South Korea. He took up badminton as a child to lose weight, suggesting a modest family environment that encouraged sport. He attended Hwasun Vocational High School before joining the Samsung Electromechanics professional team in 2006.
Not documented.
Lee's early Olympic gold at 19 and world #1 rankings with four different partners demonstrate exceptional talent and prodigy-level achievement. The South Korean national badminton pipeline, which he entered at 15, provided elite coaching and competition exposure. His partnerships with world-class players like Jung Jae-sung and Lee Hyo-jung gave him complementary team advantages. No evidence of significant family wealth or domain inheritance; his advantage came from the national sports system and his own talent.
advantage confidence: High · source count: 3 · audit: partial_source_verification · status: subagent_researched_beta