Category: Sports Related

South Korea’s World Cup team is in a tough spot after losing to Ghana:

Korea’s World Cup hopes are hanging by a slender thread after a 3-2 defeat against Ghana in Qatar on Monday. With just one point from the first two games in Group H, Paulo Bento’s men are going to need a convincing win over Portugal on Friday and hope that other results are favorable.

While the game had excitement for the neutral, there was, ultimately, disappointment for the Taeguk Warriors who will be left to regret defensive mistakes and missed chances. Ghana took a two goal lead in the first half, but the Taeguk Warriors came roaring back with two goals in the space of three second half minutes from Cho Gue-sung who became the first Korean to score more than once in a World Cup game. More defensive issues helped the Africans retake the lead and, this time, they held onto it despite plenty of pressure from the Reds.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

Manny Pacquiao despite being age 43 is still getting into the ring, this time in South Korea:

Filipino boxing great Manny Pacquiao will fight in an exhibition match in South Korea this winter to raise money for war-torn Ukraine, the event’s organizers announced Tuesday.

Pacquiao, the only eight-division world champion in boxing history, will take on the South Korean mixed martial artist DK Yoo at 11 a.m. on Dec. 11 at the Korea International Exhibition Center (KINTEX) in Goyang, just northwest of Seoul. Proceeds from the match will be donated to help relief and recovery efforts in Ukraine.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

At this point corruption and Olympics should be considered synonyms. Has anyone seen the Netflix series Icarus? At least this Olympics appears so far to not reach any where near that level of corruption:

 The Chinese Embassy in Seoul expressed “grave concern” Wednesday over the accusations of favorable judging for the Chinese team in a short track speed skating competition of the Beijing Winter Olympics.

Two South Korean skaters — Lee June-seo and Hwang Dae-heon — were disqualified in the semifinals of the men’s 1,000-meter race Monday night, with Chinese competitors reaching the finals.

It caused an uproar among many South Koreans, as they regard the short track speed skating judges as having been biased in favor of the Chinese team.

In a statement posted on its social messaging account, the embassy took issue with criticism by “some South Korean media outlets and politicians.”

“We can’t help expressing grave concern and proclaim a strict position,” its spokesperson stated.

Now that it is a “technical” issue, it should be handled by a professional and authoritative institution, the official noted.

“However, some South Korean media and politicians have criticized the Chinese government and Beijing Olympics as a whole, even instigating anti-Chinese sentiment, worsening the public sentiment of the two countries and drawing a backlash from Chinese online users,” read the statement.

It stressed that China can never accept such “irresponsible” behavior.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.

If anyone can find his birth parents it would be Korean netizens:

Some netizens here have volunteered to help Olympic gymnast Yul Moldauer, born in Seoul and adopted by American parents, search for his birth family. The 25-year-old U.S. gymnast has made waves in Korea for his Korean heritage. 

While airing the artistic gymnastics men’s apparatus final, local broadcaster KBS introduced Moldauer’s Korean name, Kyung-tae, and the sportscaster explained, “He has a longing for Korea and is searching for his older sister, who may still be living in Korea.” Moldauer finished sixth in the finals.

The subject of Moldauer soon lit up Korean social media. Much of the attention has focused on searching for his birth parents and sister.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

It looks like someone at MBC is going to get in trouble for having a sense of humor:

MBC went too far during its coverage of the Tokyo Olympic opening ceremony on Thursday, so much so that the broadcaster found it extremely challenging to make up for the mistakes.

Its hours-long livestream of the ceremony was filled with factual errors including nonsensical, scathing and discriminatory descriptions of some countries which sparked a furious online backlash. 

When Chilean athletes marched during the opening ceremony, MBC used the image of the Routes of Santiago de Composte, a network of four Christian pilgrimage routes in northern Spain. MBC staff seemed to have confused the Chilean capital Santiago with the Spanish pilgrimage routes of the same name. It also used an image of the Atlantic Ocean, instead of the Pacific, for Micronesia, a tiny country consisting of 2,100 islands in the Western Pacific Ocean. 

MBC left its viewers speechless with its inappropriate images for several countries. It used salmon for Norway and pizza for Italy. When the athletes of Republic of the Marshall Islands marched, the TV caption told viewers, “It was a nuclear test site for the United States.” 

Some of the graphics used were insulting. For instance, the image of Bitcoin was used for El Salvador as if the TV station was trying to remind viewers of the Central American country’s adoption of the virtual currency as its official tender. An image of riots was used to represent Haiti.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

This is down right childish, but what do you expect when it comes to the continuing pissing matches between the ROK and Japan:

South Korea on Saturday took down banners at its Olympic athletes’ village with a nod to history, following a request from the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

The Korean Sport & Olympic Committee (KSOC) said the IOC had raised issues with the message written across a few banners, initially hung on balconies at South Korean athletes’ rooms at the village in Tokyo. The letters translated as, “I still have support from 50 million Korean people.”

This was in reference to the famous words left by Admiral Yi Sun-sin before he and his undermanned fleet took on Japan in a naval battle in 1597. Yi, one of the most revered historical figures in South Korea, told King Seonjo of the Joseon Dynasty: “I still have 12 battleships left” and then maneuvered those dozen vessels to take down some 300 Japanese ships.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but instead of worrying about something that happened in the 16th century you would think these athletes would be more focused on the competition.

The abusive behavior is likely going on in more sports than just curling, but they were the ones that caught:

South Korean curling officials and coaches who abused the national women’s team members for years have been slapped with lifetime bans.

The Korean Curling Federation (KCF) announced Monday that its former Vice President Kim Kyung-doo, his daughter Kim Min-jung and her husband Jang Ban-seok will no longer be allowed to set foot in the sport.

he Kims were once considered the royal family in South Korean curling. Kim Kyung-doo was a founding member of the KCF in 1994. Kim Min-jung was the head coach of the women’s team when South Korea won silver at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics. Jang coached the mixed doubles team at the same Olympics.

South Korea’s surprise silver medal, led by skip Kim Eun-jung, was one of the feel-good stories at the 2018 Winter Games. But later in that same year, Kim and her teammates claimed that they had endured years of verbal and emotional abuse by Kim Kyung-doo and his family. The sports ministry launched a probe into the athletes’ charges, and the ministry concluded in February 2019 that those allegations turned out to be true. The Kim family also owed the athletes millions in prize money won at international competitions.

Yonhap

I think that is what really got them was the embezzlement of the prize money. That is pretty low to take all the prize money from the athletes who did the majority of the work to earn it.

Congratulations to Choi Ji-man and the Tampa Bay Rays:

 In just a few years, Choi Ji-man has evolved from a player seemingly no club wanted into a key member of a World Series-bound team.

The Rays defeated the Houston Astros 4-2 in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series (ALCS) at Petco Park in San Diego on Saturday (local time). The Rays won the first three games of this series before dropping the next three in a row. They just avoided becoming only the second team in major league history to squander a 3-0 series lead to lose a best-of-seven postseason round.

Choi played in five of the seven games and went 5-for-13 with a home run, an RBI, three runs scored and four walks. He was 2-for-3 with a walk and a run scored in the clinching contest.

He is now expected to become the first South Korean position player to appear in a World Series game. The Rays will face the winner of the National League Championship Series between the Atlanta Braves and the Los Angeles Dodgers, who will meet in their own Game 7 on Sunday. 

Yonhap

You can read more at the link.