About 10 years ago, I got a chance to join the trekking expedition through Mount Baik-du (백두산) and Chunji (천지), organized by a Korean Travel agency run by a well known former Korean Alpinist, specializing trekking or climbing trips for Koreans. My wife and I were tagging along the expert(?)group, mostly the OB members of SNUMC Alpinist club (산악반), two of us completely exhausting ourselves at the end of the trip.

From time to time during the trip, we heard behind-stories from the trekking director of the company, about those Himalaya trips by Koreans, the Korean Alpinist Federation, including stories of the names shown in the recent Korean movie.

Sadly, the story I heard was sometimes not as pretty as shown in the recent movie and I must say ,like many Korean sectors , some of the well known Korean Alpinists or the organization seem contaminated by capitalism and human greed.

We would agree that over the last 40-50 years, sports in general, amateur and professional alike have been heavily corrupted by commercialism and greed, evidenced by series of events involving the IOC, FIFA, NFL owners, drug-related scandals, sports related gambling, violence ,low class sexual behaviors etc.

These days, I can’t help but looking at any record breaking news in sports with grain of suspicion. In 60’s-70’s, I was closely following major leagues, NFL, etc. and frequently excited about my teams? my guys. Not any more.

I am sure there are still those sportsmen and sports-women out there ,struggling on the lonely road of true sportsmanship.>

In early 80’s, there was a movie called “Chariots of Fire” which got several Academy Awards, based on a true story of Cambridge University track and field athletes around 1924 Paris Olympic game.. It was one of a few well-made sports movies, possibly the best in my opinion.

Directed by Hugh Hudson, an Eton graduate, many scenes of the movie were filmed in the beautiful campus of Eton school and Cambridge University, Through the touching stories of true sportsmanship during the 1924 Paris Olympic games, the movie was thought –provoking for audience about “How to live a life”. But it was 1924-England, those good old days!

The title “Chariots of Fire “ was inspired by William Blake’s poem ”Jerusalem”, a warning from the Poet who was a Christian theologian-prophet, on corruption of human spirit and deterioration of the English tradition by the upcoming industrial revolution /capitalism in early 19th century. The song “Jerusalem” used in the movie is probably the second national anthem in England these days, maybe more frequently sung than “God save the Queen” in many important British national events such as wedding of Prince Williams, Rugby games, Cricket games…

Yesterday, I came across the NY Times article, the obituary of Mr. Henry Worsley ,who lost the battle after the lonely 71 days –900 miles-long brutal voyage, to be the first person to cross the Antarctica on foot, unassisted.

(http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/26/world/europe/henry-worsley-british-explorer.html?_r=0 )

This expedition was for raising money for the “Endeavour Fund”, a British Royal Foundation Project (Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry) to support the wounded and sick British soldiers.

This 55 year old retired career soldier, was a son of a distinguished Army General Sir Richard Worsley, and a descendant of Frank Worsley, who saved many lives as the skipper of the failed ship of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s similar attempt, the Antarctica expedition, in1915.

The unaided expedition began in November, 2015 in minus 40 degree+ Celcius , him carrying over 300 LBS supplies on a sled without any personal help or dropping of supplies from the air.

Air lifted from Antarctica on January 23, the doctors found him suffering from peritonitis in addition to exhaustion and dehydration, just 30miles short from his goal.

To learn from his audio journal entries as reported in NYT and BBC, that he was often recounting some of the episodes from the Shackleton’s original journey cross Antarctica 100years ago and ruminated on Tennyson and Joyce during this lonely trip, I felt heart-breaking sadness for the unfulfilled dream of this true hero.

Going over the recent discussion of heroism from the stories of professional sports stars, movies, musicians , more and more I feel the many images and stories of artists, sportsman, or value of art or music, movies ……we see or read in various forms of media, especially lay media, might be fantasy.

There is nothing wrong to enjoy and heal ourselves watching success of sportsmen and women, artists, musicians but their success or accomplishments do not and should not automatically make them heroes, whether she/he could be Kim Yuna(김연아), the figure skating  champion but also a money making tool through a entertainment company or Wilt Chamberlain who proudly boasts many fantastic basket ball statistics as well as 20,000 women  whom he had sex with. Unless they sacrifice their talents and personal wealth to the betterment of society in a substantial way, their professional statistics and accomplishments might be meaningless in a larger sense.>

But this news about Henry Worsley’s unfinished quest, ”Crossing the Antarctica on foot” appears a story of true heroism, although I do agree, “the true heroes” of modern days should include the ones like “작은 영웅” written by 노영일(this web November 1,2015),never written up or glorified in lay media.