PyeongChang 2018: South Korea Women's Curling Team Bags 1st Medal For The Sport, Reveals Hardships to Achieve Success
The South Korea women's curling team has given their country its first ever Olympic medal for the sport when they bagged the silver medal in the PyeongChang 2018. The girls failed to take the gold after an 8-3 loss to Sweden. Nonetheless, the country is rejoicing for the win on a sport that is barely known to the South Korean until now.
The five-member team, who hails from a garlic-growing region in Korea, become instants stars following their impressive winning streak in the Winter Olympics. The "Garlic Girls" has defeated some of the world's powerhouses in curling including Great Britain, Canada, and Switzerland before reaching the finals on Sunday.
Garlic Team Reaches Stardom
Curling is not a popular sport in South Korea but the Garlic Team made it one in the 2018 Winter Olympic. The team's skip 27-year-old Kim Eun-Jung and her teammates gained an army of fans across the country and even abroad. It is evident of the caricatures of the Garlic Girls that filled the Gangneung Curling Arena on Sunday and the thundering cheer for the team on their game against Sweden.
Local fans also made countless of online tributes mimicking the girls by sweeping the floor with broomsticks. Skip Kim Eun-Jung and her facial expression during the games has also become a source memes on the internet. Moreover, the same style of her thick, owl-like glasses has been out of stock in Korea as many fans want to look like her, Korea Herald reported.
Kim Eun-Jung admitted that they have no idea that they are already popular around the world. She explained that they don't know what is happening beyond the borders of the Olympics because they voluntarily turned off all their mobile phones throughout the duration of the games. She explained their decision of no mobile phone for two weeks because they want to concentrate on their game.
"We have yet to get our cell phones back from our coach, so we don't really know how popular we've gotten. But we are aware that curling has become more popular recently, given the cheers we've been getting from the staff and audience," Kim Eun-Jung said in a press conference after Sunday's final match.
Garlic Team's Hardship
Although the South Korea women's curling team has made its debut at 2014 Sochi Games, the interest in the sports was not the same at the time. It is worth to note that the team in Winter Olympics in Russia was a completely different squad that grabbed the silver in PyeongChang.
During the media conference, coach Kim Min-jung became emotional when she spoke about the "issues" the team had to overcome to achieve success. She revealed that since curling is less popular than other sports, they have a hard time obtaining the needed resources to properly train athletes, the New York Times reported. The team has proven that they are now among the top contenders in the sports.
Despite failing to wear the gold medal in their necks, their fans still admire the Garlic Team's resilience and dedication to their sport. After the final match on Sunday, fans launched a movement and were able to make the phrase "Good job, women's curling team" as the most-searched phrase on the country's most used search engine, Naver.