Category: Sports Related

It is good to see that Guus Hiddink is still involved and doing good things for Korea. 

Who knew that Korea actually has an American football team?

Michelle Wie’s abysmal play continues in the US Open:

Michelle Wie was in good company at the U.S. Women’s Open, but in the worst way.

In a rugged start to the biggest event in women’s golf, the 17-year-old from Hawaii continued her free fall Thursday by hitting only four fairways and matching her highest score ever in this championship with an 82.

While her bad play continues, the backlash against Wie continues as well:

In the two weeks since Annika Sorenstam publicly criticized 17-year-old Michelle Wie for a "lack of respect and class" in the way she withdrew from the Ginn Tribute tournament this month, Sorenstam said Tuesday she has had no contact with Wie or anyone else from her camp. Asked specifically if an apology this week at the U.S. Women’s Open would be too little too late, Sorenstam replied, "It’s never too late." <…>

"I just voiced my opinion a few weeks ago," she said, referring to Wie’s withdrawal, when she left the course citing a wrist injury after being 14 over par through 16 holes. "But I think I have said what I wanted said and I’m over it. I’m here and I’m playing and that’s really what matters to me. I’m not really sure how they deal with these type of things. All I can say is I said what I wanted to say and I stand for what I say and I still feel that way."

I think Sorenstam is going at this the wrong way because I really can’t blame Wie for what is going on, she is still only 17 years old.  Everything that is going on with Wie can be linked right back to her father.  He is the guy that should be apologizing for what he is doing to his daughter’s career and its effects on women’s golf in general.  Need I remind everyone what her dad had to say about his daughter to the Korean media in order to score endorsement dollars in Korea.  He has completely sold out his daughter to make money and the expense of developing her talent. 

Remember her father is also the same guy who blew off advice from Tiger Woods to develop her talent at the amateur level in order to learn how to win before competing in professional events:

"Michelle shot even par on the PGA Tour at age 14. How old was Tiger when he did that?" he added. "Whenever we hear these statements by Tiger, we don’tunderstand. It [Woods’ position] doesn’t make any sense."

Michelle Wie is still young enough to turn it around and hopefully turn her career into a Jennifer Capriati story instead of the Anna Kournikova route she is currently going. 

The backlash against Michelle Wie began last summer when Michelle Wie pulled out of the John Deere Classic tournament early instead of finishing it. Many felt Wie pulled out of the tournament early so she would not finish with an even lower score than she already had that would damage her image. Many golfers were disapointed with her withdrawal from the tournament and considered it disrespectful to the game then.

Then she played in a LPGA tournament soon after and was even able to get under Korean golfer Park Se-ri’s skin during the tournament:

Wie was up on the chopping block at the HSBC Women’s World Match Play Championship early this month. A bewildered Pak Se-ri said at the time, I tried to talk to her a few times, but she wouldn’t even give me a response.

Ever since then Michelle Wie’s game has continued to collapse and the resentment of golfers of her has finally reached a boiling point this past week. Wie once again falling way behind on the golf course during a LPGA tournament, decided to pull one of her patented withdrawals from the tournament before her score even got more embarrassing. This did not sit well with the LPGA’s best golfer Annika Sorenstam:

“I just feel that there’s a little bit of lack of respect and class just to leave a tournament like that and then come out and practice here,” said Sorenstam, who soldiered on for four days despite returning from a back and neck injury.

“It’s a little funny that you pull out with an injury and then you start grinding. My doctor told me to rest.”

Sorenstam was quick to note that Wie received a sponsor’s exemption to the tournament. That means she was invited. The feeling on the LPGA Tour is that Wie has mistaken invitation for entitlement.

Well her life of entitlement on the golf course is quickly coming to an end as even the media who built her up are now quickly tearing her down as well:

Phil Mickelson withdrew because of a wrist injury and flew home to San Diego for an MRI. He saw two doctors, had one cortisone shot and decided to withdraw from his next tournament.

Michelle Wie withdrew because of a wrist injury and went to the range to hit balls. In fairness, at least she took a day off.

It only gets better, look how this writer wraps up his article:

But she is no longer the prodigy that amazed the golf world with such power for such youth.

She is 17, but no longer a kid.

There was a time the LPGA Tour needed Wie a lot more than Wie needed the LPGA Tour. That might not be the case anymore.

People are far more willing to forgive a bad round than bad manners.

The criticism must have had an effect because Wie once again contemplating pulling another withdrawal yesterday in another tournament decided to stay in and finished the tournament with an embarrassing 21 over par.

I have said this once and I will keep saying this again. Michelle Wie has been playing in these PGA tour events in order to build her brand name image and make money from it. However, she is doing this at the expense of all the much better LPGA golfers out there which is effecting the image of the LPGA and their players as them being below Wie and a lesser league even though many of the golfers in the LPGA are much better than her. If Michelle Wie consistently played LPGA events and lost which she probably would her name brand image would sink dramatically, but the quality of the image of the LPGA would improve because it would show how much better the other female golfers are compared to Wie. However, by consistently playing in PGA events and losing it gives her some kind of creditbility in order to make money and that is what it is all about.

Michelle Wie is still young and has unlimited potential and will have plenty of opportunity to challenge the PGA in the future, but she should at least become a serious contender before challenging the PGA.

I really can’t blame Wie for all of this because it is clear that her image and brand name marketing strategy is all being devised by her parents. How can anyone forget this statement by her father:

Michelle Wie’s father Wie Byung-wook, a professor of transportation at the University of Hawaii, agreed to a telephone interview with the Chosun Ilbo on Thursday.
I’m well aware there that some say, since Michelle Wie is an American why is she making such a fuss. But you know what, the only thing about her that’s American is her passport, she is definitely Korean.

Than to further show how far her parents are going to create an image around their daughter to make money, the Wie’s have hired a small army of image consultants to promote her. These image consultants have definitely worked because Wie is making more money than the top female golfers despite not winning anything and often embarrassing herself on the golf course.

Wie needs to go the Tiger Woods route while she still has a chance and go to college play collegiate golf to develop her game and then play regularly on the LPGA. If she is able to dominate the LPGA like Sorenstam has done at times than play in PGA events like Sorenstam has also done before. If not we may just be looking at golf’s version of Anna Kournikova.

If she does turn into a bust any bets the Korean media will still be calling her “Korea’s golf phenomenon“?

Make sure you read more over at Iceberg and Lost Nomad.

Sometimes I wonder if Coach Verbeek hopes he does get fired:

South Korea’s soccer coach Pim Verbeek has put his job on the line ahead of July’s Asian Cup. After securing a 3-1 victory over the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in the second qualifying round for the 2008 Beijing Olympics on Wednesday, Verbeek told reporters his expectation for the games in July.

‘I am sure we can win (the Asian Cup)… I think we should at least make it into the semi-finals and if not, I will take a look at myself,’ Verbeek was quoted as saying in sports daily Sports Chosun.

‘If I find many mistakes in my decisions, I will tell the Korean Football Association to look for another leader,’ he added.

The most hated athlete in Korea, Apolo Anton Ohno has won the Dancing with the Stars competition:

Olympian Apolo Ohno celebrated his 25th birthday in style Tuesday night, winning top honors on ABC’s Dancing With the Stars competition.

Ohno, a double-gold medal winner in short-track speed skating, and pro dance partner Julianne Hough, 18, were the youngest competitors in the show’s four seasons. But the couple earned two perfect 10s from Dancing’s judges in three of the competition’s final dances.

"You have incredible chemistry," said judge Carrie Ann Inaba. "You’re such a team."

Ohno and Hough edged former boy band singer Joey Fatone and partner Kym Johnson. Professional boxer Laila Ali — routinely applauded for her elegance and grace on the dance floor — and partner Maksim Chmerkovskiy came in third.

You can read a whole lot more about his win over at his website here.

For those that don’t know, Apolo Ohno is hated in Korea due to him winning Gold Medals in the 2002 and 2006 Winter Olympics over Korean athletes.  The timing of what happened during the Salt Lake City games just happened to coincide with the soccer World Cup build up in Korea that year followed by the anti-US hatefest in the aftermath of the USFK armored vehicle incident.  For a taste of how hated he is here is a translation of his win in the 2006 Olympics in the Korean media:

Ohno hung a “gold medal of luck” around his neck in the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics after acquiring a gold medal through “Hollywood Action” and yet another when he acquired his first gold medal of this competition by holding his advantaged start and leading from start to finish in the 500 meters.

Make sure to read the whole thing.  One of the races in 2006 games that he lost to a Korean skater was actually treated as a celebration, not because a Korean won, but because Ohno lost:

Articles on online editions of major dailies followed the same line as the TV networks.

“The final race was Korea’s celebration party,” the usually staid Maeil Business Newspaper wrote.

South Koreans in the world’s most wired country also showed their joy over the Internet.

“The race without Ohno showed what clean play is all about,” one South Korean wrote on a message board on the popular Internet portal Naver.

“There was no Hollywood ending for Ohno in Turin,” read a separate commentary.

Before Ohno came to Korea in 2005 for the World Cup Championships he received death threats, was voted the most hated athlete in Korea, and had to be met at Incheon Airport by an escort of 100 riot police to protect him.

Than to make matters worse Ohno had a press conference scheduled to give his side of the story to the Korean media and it was cancelled at the last minute and then proceeded to restrict his access to the media during the entire competition.   The organizers did not possibly want the Korean population to hear something like this from the face of evil image that had been built up in Korea of Ohno:

“One guy wins and one guy loses, but it’s not entirely up to him,” Ohno said. “Our sport is so crazy that on any given Sunday, anybody can win. You can run the same race over and over five times, and you’ll probably get five different winners. It’s wild.”

Ohno described South Korea as “the best nation in the world for short-track speedskating” and made it clear that he doesn’t want any hard feelings to linger from his Olympic victory.

“The Korean public has so many fans of short track,” he said. “This is the place to skate. If you’re part of the national team here, you’re definitely one of the best in the world.”

Unfortunately the Korean public wasn’t allowed to hear anything like this from Ohno. 

Than during the competition Ohno received the payback I’m sure he expected by coming to race in South Korea by being disqualified twice during the competition.  Koreans were jubilant about this at the time, however Ohno would rebound and go on to win two Gold Medals and take over the World #1 ranking from South Korean skater Ahn Hyun-soo by the end of the competition.  I was very impressed with the way Ohno handled himself when he came to Korea, despite all the absolutely unjustified xenophobic garbage from some sectors of Korean society.  It is easy to get a defensive and bad attitude when confronted with such nonsense, but he kept a positive attitude his whole time in Korea.

Things have cooled off recently and Ohno actually came back to Korea to train a little last year, but unfortunately to this day most Koreans still consider him the Most Hated Athlete in Korea.  It is amazing how quickly things change because just 10 years ago he was a friend of Korea. 

Despite all this it is good to see Ohno keep a positive attitude about everything and go on to win the Dancing with the Stars competition.  I wish him good luck as he tries to go for Gold again in the 2010 Olympic Games.

Michael Totten continues his great work from Iraq with his latest posting from Iraqi Kurdistan.  In his posting he has this picture of a Kurdish female Peshmerga soldier playing basketball:

It looks like the Zaytun unit has done more than introduce modern plumbing in Kurdistan, they have expanded the Red Devil fan base as well.  Highly recommend reading the whole article.  How a segment of the American population wants to abandon these people like the girl pictured above is beyond me. 

I would like to send out a big congratulations to Park Tae-hwan who won Korea’s first ever swimming medal:

Park Tae-hwan of South Koreapulled off an upset at the first swimming final of the world championships Sunday, coming from behind to knock off Aussie favorite Grant Hackett in the 400-meter freestyle.

Park made a furious sprint over the final 50 meters, passing three swimmers — Hackett included — before he touched the wall in 3 minutes, 44.30 seconds to become South Korea’s first world champion.

In fact, it was the first medal of any kind for the South Koreans in the history of the world aquatic championships.

Hopefully Park’s success carries over into next year’s Olympics in Beijing. 

Does anyone remember this story about Olympic bronze medallist Toby Dawson’s search for his biological parents in Korea?  When the search first started Toby Dawson briefly became the Anna Nicole of Korea when every man in Korea was claiming to be his dad and Dawson had to leave Korea to escape the media pressure of being Hines Ward-lite.  It is now proven that a man from Pusan who claimed to be his dad is in fact his father:

According to the DNA test, Kim Jae-su is with more than 99 percent probability the father of the Korean-American skier, who was adopted in the U.S. 26 years ago. The test was conducted by DNA test firm HumanPass at the request of the Korea Tourism Organization late last month. The KTO was asked for a DNA test by Dawson when it contacted the skier to name him as an honorary ambassador for the state-run tourism organization. Kim accepted the DNA test and came to Seoul to present six hairs and epithelial cells from the mouth on Feb. 3.

Here are pictures of Toby Dawson, Mr. Kim, and Mr. Kim’s Son.  There is definitely a strong family resemblance.

This is how Mr. Kim said that he had originally lost his son in Pusan:

Kim lost his son in 1981, when the boy became separated from his mother in the crowd at a local market. Dawson was found near the same place and taken to an orphanage, where he lived until he was adopted by an American couple.

The Kims say they searched high and low for their lost son. “I didn’t think reporting it to the police would be of any help, so I went around looking for him myself,” Kim said. The couple covered most orphanages and markets in the city but could only search on their days off and got around on foot or by bus, so their progress was slow.

This is something he will have to explain to Toby Dawson, but how hard were you looking when your son was sitting in a local orphanage?  Sad story, but things have worked out well for Toby Dawson and I wish him the best. 

So what does chopsticks and Korea’s bid to host the 2014 Olympic Games have in common?  Well, go read Brian’s latest update about Gangwon provinces attempt to host the games.