Backgound <p>It is known that in addition to environmental factors such as the athlete’s own efforts or the qualities of the coach, genetic predisposition can also have a significant impact on achievements in the sports field.</p> Objective <p>For this reason, this study tried to analyze whether single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the myostatin, hemochromatosis(HFE) and estrogen receptor 1 (ESR1) genes, which are known to affect muscular strength, cardiorespiratory endurance and flexibility, respectively, could significantly affect the athletic performance of endurance or power/sprint events in Korean population.</p> Methods <p>A total of 192 Korean unrelated participants were recruited in this study. They were divided into two groups: controls (<i>n</i> = 72) and track-field athletes (<i>n</i> = 120), which included throwing athletes (<i>n</i> = 39) and distance runners (<i>n</i> = 81). Also, the determination of the genotypes constituting the SNP markers in the three kinds of candidate genes mentioned above was performed using TaqMan method.</p> Results <p>Among the three kinds of SNP markers studied, only the rs1799945 polymorphism in the HFE gene was observed to be significantly associated with endurance performance in Korean athletes (<i>p</i> &lt; 0.05).</p> Conclusion <p>Therefore, our results suggest that the rs1799945 polymorphism in the HFE gene may be one of useful genetic markers for endurance performance in Korean athletes. Further studies using larger sample sizes and various sports events are needed to replicate our results.</p>