A South Korean Amateur Runner Has Died After a Collapse Near the Seoul Race Finish

Yoo Ji-won, a graduate student at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) who had broken three hours for the marathon in March, went down on Cheonggyecheon-ro in central Seoul at around 8:49 a.m. on Sunday with only about 500 meters of the Seoul Race half-marathon to go. She got CPR on the road from race staff, who also called 119, according to a race-day story from the JoongAng Ilbo carried by Korea Daily. She died at a nearby hospital, Starnews reported.

Organizers announced the death on Monday in a notice on the race website that did not name her, and no cause has been made public. Korean outlets have since identified her, and People picked up the story in English, reporting that she had more than 8,000 followers on Instagram.

Yoo had only been running since 2022 when she finished the Seoul Marathon in 2:56:32 on March 15, and in April she won the women’s masters 10K at the Gunsan Saemangeum Marathon, Newspim reported. Her graduate work at KAIST was on AI chips.

The Seoul Metropolitan Government and the newspaper Dong-A Ilbo put on the Seoul Race, which offers a half-marathon and an 11K on courses through central Seoul. About 12,000 people took part, and the race started at 7:30 a.m., according to the JoongAng Ilbo‘s race-day report. A male runner also collapsed near the spot where Yoo fell and was treated on site for difficulty breathing, though he was reportedly conscious, the same report said.

In the notice, the organizing committee offered condolences to her family and to the other runners. “We extend our deepest condolences to the bereaved family as they cope with this sudden loss,” it wrote, in the Korea Herald‘s translation. The committee said it would examine what happened but has not said what that will cover or when it will report.

Yoo’s death came a week after three others at big road races. On Oct. 4, runners died after the Cardiff Half Marathon in Wales, the Milwaukee Lakefront half-marathon and the Portland Marathon, and on Sept. 13 two 25-year-old men died after collapsing at England’s Great North Run.

A friend who posts running content as Bummy ran the Seoul Race too and did not know who had collapsed until after he finished. “As soon as I crossed the finish line, I looked for you on the awards podium, but then came the unsettling news, and I began to sense a reality I didn’t want to believe,” he wrote on Instagram in Korean, in People‘s translation.