Hee Wan Lee
 Born
in Seoul, South Korea in 1956, Lee came to
Germany first as a player in 1985 to compete for
the club VBC Paderborn. He quickly established
himself as a great strategist. As South Korea’s
best middle blocker, he was supposed to take up
this position with his new club, but when there
was no setter available he stepped into this
role. This and his later success as a coach
caused him to be christened "Karajan of
Volleyball" by the German Volleyball Magazine.
In 1993 he started training as a coach at the
Cologne Sports Academy (Sporthochschule Köln),
from where he graduated with a diploma in 1995.
Lee had early success in his coaching career
when his teams won the German Championship in
1994 and 1997, were second at the European Cup
Winners’ Cup in 1996 and then in 1999, he took
the national team to Italy for the European
Championship where they finished fourth.
Germany’s sixth place at the Sydney 2000
Olympics meant they finished the second most
successful European team behind Russia. Since
then Lee has continued to maintain a good return
with an excellent 10th place finish at the 2002
World Championships in front of the German fans
and a seventh place finish at the 2003 World
Grand Prix.
Later in the year, he took the side to the
runner's up position at the 2003 European
Championship before surprising Russia, Italy,
Poland and Turkey to win the European
Continental Olympic Qualification tournament in
January this year.
The great tactician that he is, Lee will be
looking to maintain that sort of form and
improve on their 2003 World Grand Prix finish of
7th in the 2004 edition. |
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Percentage
of Wins
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Germany |
Total
Matches |
Matches
Won |
Matches
Lost |
Wins
% |
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Germany
28 July-01 Aug.