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| Korea's Gim Un-chi shouts instructions to her teammates after delivering the stone during women's curling competition against Sweden at the Ice Cube Curling Center in Sochi, Russia, Wednesday. / AP-Yonhap |
By Kwon Ji-youn, Jung Min-ho
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Sweden scored the critical three points in the third end to lead the score 4-2 against Korea, which was exposed by its lack of experience at critical moments of the game.
Sweden widened the gap to 7-3 in the eighth end by capitalizing on Korea's errors and finished the lopsided competition with a 7-4 victory.
After its successful Olympic debut the previous day, in which they defeated Japan 12 to 7, Korea faced Switzerland with confidence.
The game opened with a series of take-outs. In the first end, members of both teams took turns whisking each other's stones out of the house until only a stone each remained. With its last stone, Korea had the chance to take out Switzerland's final stone and score a point, but as the Swiss stone was cast off the house, it took Korea's stone with it.
Ends two, three and four blew hot and cold. In end two, Switzerland failed to land a single stone in the house, so Skip Kim Ji-sun's last stone, which hit the button, gave Team Korea its first point. In end three, Korea kept busy defending Switzerland's offense, and managed to take out each and every stone. It acquired an additional point in end four.
But during end five, an aggressive Switzerland collected two points and evened the score out. In end six, the floodgates opened and it landed a whopping four stones in the house, scoring an additional three points.
Korea retaliated in end seven by picking up two extra points, but allowed the Swiss to collect two points in end eight, and by then the score was 4 to 7.
After collecting two points in end nine against a defensive Switzerland, Team Korea granted Switzerland an additional point in end 10 and finished the game with a 6-8 loss.
The score was closer than expected as Korea is ranked 10th out of 10 countries taking part in Olympic women's curling this year, while the Swiss are ranked fourth.
Shaun White places fourth
Both Lee Kwang-ki and Kim Ho-jun failed to qualify for the final in men's snowboard halfpipe at the Rosa Khutor Extreme Park, Tuesday.
Lee was positioned in heat one of the qualification round and placed 16th with 27.00 points in run one, but redeemed himself in run two, placing sixth with 69.50 points. Because the event only takes into account the athlete's best score, Lee finished with 69.50 points and placed 11th overall. Unfortunately, only the top nine scorers qualified for the semi-final and final.
Kim Ho-jun placed 9th in the first run with 61.75 points, and 18th in his second run with 20.00 points. Overall, he placed 14th, with a score 34 points short of snowboarding megastar Shaun White.
But White of the United States, who all had assumed would top the podium, fell twice in the first run of the final and received 35.00. A panicked White, winner of two consecutive Olympic gold medals, improved in the second run but still rode sloppily, receiving a score of 90.25. He ended up fourth, behind a Swiss and two Japanese. Iouri Podladtchikov won the gold with 94.75 points and Ayumu Hirano took home the silver with 93.50 points. Taku Hiraoka finished third with 92.25 points. Hirano and Hiraoka became the first Asian snowboarders to score medals at the Olympic Games.
Sung ends luge 29th
Sung Eun-ryung placed 31st in the third run of the women's single luge on Tuesday, clocking 52.486 seconds, 2.721 seconds short of Natalie Geisenberger's time of 49.765 seconds. Sung then placed 29th in the fourth run in 52.124 seconds and ended the race in 29th place overall, with a total time of three minutes 28.743 seconds.
Geisenberger of Germany clinched the gold with 3:19.768 and Tatjana Huefner, the silver, with 3:20.907. Erin Hamlin of the United States placed third with 3:21.145.
*There are four positions based on the order of when they release and their specific jobs: the lead, second, vice and skip. The skip, who releases last, is usually the most skilled and experienced player as he or she will have to attempt the most difficult shots through the stones that are already in the way. *After a stone is released, two players will rush in front of it and sweep the ice to control the ball's direction and distance. The skip is influential in tactics, staying behind scoring area to monitor the stone's movement. After the first few releases, the teams are faced with choices in strategy, including aiming for the button directly, blocking the path of the opponent or knocking the opponent's stones out of the scoring area. *While curling ice may appear smooth from a distance, the surface is actually "pebbled," an effect created by spraying water through sprinklers that have different-sized holes. The tops of the frozen droplets are then scraped to provide friction for the stones to travel better. |
