SEOUL, South Korea: Running influencer Yoo Ji-won collapsed about 500 meters from the finish line of a half marathon in Seoul on Sunday and later died at a hospital, race organizers confirmed. She was 25. The distance runner had built an audience of thousands by documenting her training, and her final post a week earlier was a 10-kilometer race time.
The organizing committee of the Seoul Race said an emergency was reported at 8:49 a.m. on October 11 at the 20.6-kilometer mark of the 21-kilometer course. Medics treated her at the scene before a 119 ambulance carried her to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead. No cause of death has been determined.
People confirmed her identity on Monday, after her friend and fellow running creator Bummy described searching for her at the awards podium before the news reached him. “I dropped everything and rushed to the hospital, hoping to see you one last time, but I am so sorry I couldn’t stay by your side until the very end,” he wrote on Instagram.
Yoo was a graduate student at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology researching AI semiconductors, Malay Mail reported, and running was the discipline she was better known for. In March she finished the full Seoul Marathon in 2 hours 56 minutes 32 seconds, a sub-three-hour result her community celebrated. After her death, false claims spread online that she had been treated and released, and an acquaintance corrected the record by saying she remained hospitalized until the end.
The fitness world has lost several young creators this year, and each loss has landed hard on communities that followed them daily. Hypefresh covered fitness YouTuber Connor Murphy’s death after a drowning in Thailand and TikTok creator Kae Bradshaw’s passing at 29 after her fight with bile duct cancer. South Korea’s creator scene was shaken earlier by the murder of Korean streamer Yoon Ji-ah.
The committee said it will examine the emergency response and take follow-up measures. Tributes kept arriving on Thursday, and the notice posted by the news account Dexerto has drawn more than 1,600 likes. Friends have asked runners to focus on her memory and her family rather than circulate unverified updates, a request her followers have largely honored.
