Last week, The Olympic Museum, Lausanne, hosted a donation ceremony of a strange sculpture. It is called Born Fast and it represents the skeleton of a foot in a sprint start position. At 2.62 metres tall, and made of bronze painted white, this impressive sculpture was created by South Korean artist Lee Hyungkoo.

The statue was unveiled in Olympic Park in the presence of IOC President Jacques Rogge; the former President of the International Judo Federation and current President of the Korean Olympic Committee, Yong Sung Park; IOC member and Olympic judo champion in Tokyo in 1964 Anton Geesink; Olympic Museum Director Francis Gabet; and a large Korean delegation.

It was to express his gratitude to the Olympic Movement that Yong Sung Park ordered this sculpture from Hyungkoo Lee and donated it to the International Olympic Committee, which erected it in the park of The Olympic Museum.

In his speech, and using his experience in orthopaedic surgery, Jacques Rogge explained that recent research had proved that the ability to run fast was greatly dependent on the morphology of the foot. He also noted that the Born Fast sculpture was a perfect illustration of the wish dear to the IOC’s: to link sport, art and culture.

Hyunkoo Lee was born in 1969. He went to university in Korea and the USA before settling in Seoul in 2002. A series of his works, entitled Animatus, in the Pop Art style, was presented in 2008 to the Basle Natural History Museum, and, at the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007, the Korean pavilion was devoted entirely to his works.