Former footballer and TV celebrity Lee Chun-soo caught a drunken driver who tried to flee the scene after hitting a taxi.

Lee was returning home after a shooting for a TV show on Tuesday when he saw a taxi driver on the Olympic Expressway in Seoul, according to the police and Lee.

The taxi driver asked to help catch the hit-and-run driver, who crashed into the taxi and tried to escape the scene on foot.

Lee got out of his car and ran about one kilometer (0.6 miles) in the rain to catch the driver and handed him over to the police officers who arrived at the scene.

"Anyone would have done what I had done under the same circumstances," Lee told the JoongAng Ilbo, an affiliate of the Korea JoongAng Daily.

Lee's staff also helped him move Lee's car to the hard shoulder after Lee ran to catch the suspect.

Lee played for the Korean national team from 2000 through 2008. He first came to prominence at the 2002 Korea-Japan World Cup. He then became the first-ever Korean footballer to play in La Liga in 2003 as a player for Real Sociedad.

After retiring as a professional football player in 2015, Lee has been active as a TV celebrity, appearing as a coach on SBS's football variety show, "Kick a Goal" (2021).

BY CHO YONG-JUN [cho.yongjun1@joongang.co.kr]