(ATR) A funny thing has been happening at the Gangneung Olympic Park as people are rearranging plans, dropping everything, and traveling across the country to watch curling.
"The Korean team has been making good results, so this is my first time to come here to see curling," Tae Hyone Kim told Around the Rings. "It is very fun."
Kim traveled from Seoul to see ice hockey and bobsled at the Olympics, but he made one last minute crucial decision. He made sure he didn’t leave without snagging some last-minute curling tickets.
"I had never planned to come here to see this game, but it happened," Kim added. "Its very fun! The city is a festival, you know?"
Yesterday, the South Korean team stood proudly atop of the curling round robin table after a 7-6 win over Sweden, the silver medalist at the 2014 Olympics. The next day Korea beat the United States 9-6 to improve its record to 6-1. The win qualified the team to the semifinals, a first for the host country.
Jong Hyeok Choi has been a volunteer in language services at the curling venue throughout the 2018 Olympics. He said that people in the venue are getting "more and more excited" as the Olympics progress. Like many, Choi was compelled by a sense of duty to help the PyeongChang Games run successfully since it is the first time South Korea is hosting a Winter Olympics.
"I like working here," Choi said. "I have met many people and I [even] met my friends."
The Olympics traditionally are seen as a chance for athletes in non-traditional sports in the host country to get a home field boost. South Korea competed for the first time in women’s curling at the 2014 Games, finishing eighth. The men’s team is debuting in Olympic competition in PyeongChang.
Predictably, the media both domestic and foreign have seized on the story. It helps that the women’s team has five members and a coach all with the family name Kim. Only two of the six women are sisters. In Korea the team is named the "garlic girls," because all five members attending the same high school. The high school, according to local media, is in North Gyeongsang province, known for garlic production in Korea.
"After the Olympic team trial we really trained hard and went through a lot of difficulties so still we had to do well in the PyeongChang Olympics," Eun Jung Kim, the team’s skip, said after the win over Sweden. "Because the Olympics are being hosted in PyeongChang we have this intention that we will do better and we also have this thought that if we don’t do well now when will we do better?"
The round robin stage of the curling tournament is played with four games going on simultaneously; the arena gets loud in spontaneous moments. As Korea was putting on a show against Sweden, raucous Canadian fans were cheering on their team, which unpredictably has been in crisis fighting for a semifinal spot.
Overpowering the Canadian fans were chants of "Daehanmingug," which translates to "Korea". The chants get so loud at times, that the Korean coach put out a plea to local media to tell fans not to yell the players’ names before their turn, for fear of distracting them.
Even though it has caught the attention of the host country's fans during the Olympics, the team still remembers having to fight for ice time to practice in one of the country’s few rinks. Eun Jung Kim admitted to having this "pressure that we have to compensate" for every time the team takes the ice.
"I have a lot of stress because our junior record [also] wasn’t that good," Kim said. "But because of this stress and experiences we believe that this record is earned."
South Korea still has two matches against the Olympic Athletes From Russia and Denmark, the two bottom teams in the women’s table. Winning both matches would give the team momentum headed to the semifinal round, where three of four teams eventually medal. It is in that round Choi, who’s been there since the beginning, said he knows what will happen.
"I like the girl’s team; they play very well, so I think they will win," Choi said. "And [everyone inside] will be screaming."
Written by Aaron Bauer
25 Years at #1: Your best source of news about the Olympics is AroundTheRings.com, for subscribers only.
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