Kim Yeon-Koung

I'll be honest — Kim Yeon-koung is probably the greatest female volleyball player of her generation, and it baffles me that casual sports fans in the West still don't know her name. This outside hitter from Ansan, South Korea stood 192 cm tall and played with a ferocity that made her the most dominant presence on any court she stepped onto, whether that was the Turkish Süper Lig, the Chinese or Japanese leagues, or the Olympic stage. She captained the South Korean national team for over a decade, dragging them to a stunning fourth-place finish at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics in what turned out to be her farewell run with the squad before retiring from national duty in 2021. Her jump serve and cross-court spike were genuinely scary, but what always got me was her composure — she just never looked rattled, ever.

Name (English)

Kim Yeon-Koung

Name (Japanese)

キム・ヨンギョン

Reading

きむ・よんぎょん

Born

February 26, 1988 (age 38)

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Pisces / Dragon

Origin

Ansan, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea

Height

2 cm

Occupation

volleyball player

High school

Hanbom High School

Motto

Private

• Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/kimyk10/
• Xhttps://x.com/kimyk10
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%AD%E3%83%A0%E3%83%BB%E3%83%A8%E3%83%B3%E3%82%AE%E3%83%A7%E3%83%B3

Tags

• Gyeonggi Province
• volleyball player

Last updated

2026-06-02

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.