Sohn Kee-chung was a Korean Olympic athlete and long-distance runner. He became the first Korean to win a medal at the Olympic Games, winning gold in the marathon at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. He was born in the Korean Peninsula, but he was forced to compete as a member of the Japanese delegation because Korea was under Japanese rule at the time. Sohn set an Olympic record of 2 hours 29 minutes 19.2 seconds. Sohn Kee-chung set the men's marathon world record of 2:26:42 in Meiji Shrine Games, Tokyo, Japan on November 3, 1935. It stood 11.5 years, until Suh Yun-bok's 2:25:39 on April 19, 1947. Wiki link