Korean curlers look to extend success

By Kang Seung-woo

Even before fully recovering from the hangover of a strong performance at the world championship late last month, the Korean women’s curling team is still sweating on the ice rink at the National Training Center in Taeneung, northern Seoul.

Despite finishing an impressive fourth in the 12-team event in Canada, they have been training for national team tryouts to run from Saturday to Wednesday. They intend to prove that the surprising yet pleasant run was no fluke, and furthermore, possibly represent the nation in what might be its maiden Winter Olympic participation.

“In order not to be labeled as a one-year wonder, we are training hard to represent the nation for another year,” said team skip Kim Ji-sun in an interview with The Korea Times.

The Korea Curling Federation holds national team tryouts every April. The team with the best record out of the five competing will be picked as the national squad for the next year following the five-day competition.

The five members of the team that achieved the unprecedented success at the annual World Women’s Curling Championship belong to the Gyeonggi Province Sports Council.

Although the team’s fourth-place finish earned much praise, some question if they can continue the high standard.

“When we hear negative words about us, we try to play harder to silence critics rather than get discouraged,” Kim said.

The Korean team’s impressive run in Lethbridge was a feel-good story during the tournament.

The team, comprised of Shin Mi-sung, Lee Hyun-jung, Lee Seul-bee, Gim Un-chi and Kim, edged top-ranked and reigning Olympic champions Sweden 9-8, while also defeating traditional powerhouses such as Denmark and China to top the standings at one point during the round-robin stage.

Korea reached the last four for the first time, after finishing with a 2-9 record in Esbjerg, Denmark last year. The team has registered only five victories against 26 losses in its three previous trips to this competition.

With unheralded Korea continuing to add to the win column, the squad was a pleasant surprise in the event.

“We were surprised, too. Why wouldn’t everyone be?” Kim said.

“One player from the championship admitted that she had not known all of the Korean players until her team met us. It is true because we had made few headlines in world curling circles.”

As Kim said, curling in Korea has failed to register on the sport’s map until recently.

The sport’s governing body was founded in 1994 and there are about 700 registered players with five senior amateur clubs — two for men and three for women.

As curling is a less-followed sport in Korea, the national team suffers from a lack of financial support, similar to other unpopular sports.

“In order to train longer overseas within the budget, we lived in a homestay there and ate in all the time to save money,” said Shin, who served as vice skip in Canada.

All five players agreed that the sport needs more ice rinks to train on for Korea to see success on the international stage.

“There are only two rinks here, one in Taeneung and the other in Uiseong, North Gyeongsang Province,” said Lee Hyun-jung, who is one of the two married members in the squad. The other is Shin.

“It is hard to go to Uiseong and train there because it is far from here and the clubs in the area often use it,” she added.

Even though they are part of the national team, the members have to wait for their turn to use the rink because other teams also train there.

Unlike Korea, neighboring Japan and China are sold on the sport, which has been an official event at the Winter Olympics since 1998.

“In Japan, curling is a sport for all generations, so it has more ice rinks and more people playing it,” Lee said.

“China has given its full support to curling, nurturing players and building rinks. In addition, it frequently exposes the sport to people, showing games on TV at prime time, not like in the morning or late at night in Korea,” said Kim, who stayed in China in 2007 for one year to develop her skills.

Even if successful in maintaining the national team status, they are to participate in the Pacific-Asia Curling Championships in November with two world championship slots up for grabs.

Based on achievements at the world championships in 2012 and 2013, just 10 countries will qualify for the Winter Olympics in 2014.

“The short-term goal is to represent Korea and take part in next year’s world championship, and we have to set our sights on making the nation’s first Olympic appearance in curling in Sochi, Russia, in 2014,” Shin said.

“As we posted good results at this year’s world championship, we will try our best to do better next year in order to punch our ticket to the 2014 Winter Games,” Kim said.

“We are in a confident mood to pull off an Olympic berth.”

Curling is a sport that Korea plans to strategically nurture ahead of the PyeongChang Winter Games in 2018 and they hope to perform when their country hosts.

“Curling is not affected much by age. Those who still played at an elite level at the championship were in their 40s,” said Lee Seul-bee.

“Although it will be held six years later, if we prepare for the Olympics well, our participation is not out of the question.”