Category: Sports Related

Are Korean Netizens Behind Kansas City Royals All-Star Voting Surge?

| June 21, 2015

With all the news around how 8 Kansas City players could start on the American League All-Star team due to a surge in online fan voting this got me wondering if South Korean netizens were behind this?  I ask because the Kansas City Royals are a popular team in Korea now due to their SuperFan Lee Sung-woo.  If anyone knows how to get out the vote online it is South Koreans netizens.  So is this online voting surge just a coincidence or has anyone seen anything in regards to South Koreans getting out the vote for the Kansas City Royals?:

– In every corner of the Kansas City Royals‘ clubhouse, they revel in the chaos, each player’s face contorted into something that resembles a Guy Fawkes mask. Somehow, the American League All-Star team’s lineup as of today consists of eight Royals and the best player in the world, and this, to them, is the most glorious kind of anarchy, one everybody involved wants to believe is built on the back of pure passion.

It may well be that the 25th-sized market of Major League Baseball’s 26 mobilized, rocked the vote and did so without the help of a sneaky Python script or an undetectable Perl script or any of the ways around the system that for the first time has gone online only and seen itself turned completely on its head. Because right now, the single worst offensive player in baseball is the AL starter at second base and the single best offensive player in the AL is not starting and the entire thing is like a coastal fever dream in which the Midwest rises up and fights back for all those years of flyover jokes.  [Yahoo Sports]

You can read the rest at the link.

Why are Korean Female Golfers So Good?

| April 4, 2015

Well according to the Korean female LPGA players it is because they practice more:

The world’s best female golfers are gathered at Mission Hills Golf Club this week for the first major of the 2015 LPGA Tour season — the ANA Inspiration.

It’s become a familiar sight while walking along the driving range and seeing almost half of the stalls filled by South Korean golfers.

Many argue it’s just a numbers game and with more players from a certain country, the more you’ll see them on leaderboards.

“It’s not intimidating to me at all,” says American Cristie Kerr who became world No. 10 after her win from the previous week. “It’s pretty simple really. They seem to outnumber a lot of other factions on the tour.”

The 37-year-old veteran is responsible for snapping the streak of six wins by Korean-born golfers after topping Lydia Ko at the Kia Classic.

Granted it’s not Kerr’s job to break down the demographics of the field, but at the moment there are 25 South Korean players who hold an LPGA Tour card compared to 45 Americans.

24 of those 25 are in the field this week while the number of Americans is just north of 35.

After all the theories flying around about Korean golfers, it only made sense to just ask them directly.

“It’s all practice” says world No. 13 Mirim Lee. “Golfers from Korea practice so much and the KLPGA is a really good tour. When I was an amateur I would wake up everyday at 5 a.m. and practice until 8 or 9 p.m.”

“In my opinion Korean players practice a lot more,” says world No. 2 Inbee Park, the highest ranked South Korean player on tour.  [Korea Times]

You can read more at the link.

Park Tae-hwan Suspended and Out of the Next Olympics for Doping

| March 26, 2015

Not only is he out of the next Olympics, but I have to imagine this will kill his endorsement deals which have to be worth a lot of money in Korea:

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Former Olympic swimming champion Park Tae-hwan was suspended 18 months for doping.

In a doping hearing session in Lausanne, Switzerland, Tuesday, the world swimming governing body FINA handed down Park the ban for being tested positive for testosterone in a drug test in September.

The punishment will expire on March 2, 2016, giving the 26-year-old a chance to swim at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

However, the Korean Olympic Committee prohibits an athlete whose suspension expired less than three years before the Olympics from representing the country

FINA added that Park’s results from Sept. 3 will be annulled and prize money will be forfeited, meaning he will have to return the one silver and five bronzes he won at last year’s Asian Games.  [Korea Times]

You can read the rest at the link.

Korea Declines IOC Recommendation to Share 2018 Winter Olympics with Japan

| December 13, 2014

There has been funding battles going on between the national and provincials governments in Korea in regards to the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics.  The IOC has now stepped in to recommend that Korea try and share the 2018 Games with Japan to reduce costs.  It appears the suggestion of sharing the games with their rival Japan has gotten the attention of Korea:

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The 2018 PyeongChang Olympic Games chief organizer confirmed Friday “there is no possibility” events will be shared with cities outside of Korea.

“Construction for all the venues for the PyeongChang Games has begun. At this juncture, it is difficult to adopt the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) reform package,” the PyeongChang Organizing Committee for the 2018 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games (POCOG) President and CEO Cho Yang-ho said in a statement.

He said he “highly appreciates” the IOC’s initiative for the reforms because it will be very effective for the Olympic Movement down the road, but insists all events in 2018 will be staged in the counties of PyeongChang and Jeongseon, and the city of Gangneung.

The IOC Monday unanimously approved President Thomas Bach’s 40-point “Olympic Agenda 2020” reform package, which includes recommendations allowing cities to stage some events in different countries to cut costs.

The IOC is worried that a new sliding venue under construction in Gangwon Province may have little use after the Games and wants the POCOG to move sliding events to countries that already have venues, such as Japan. But, local governments and interested parties have insisted they have no intention of splitting the host role with other countries.  [Korea Times]

So the bottom line is that all the venues that will have no use after the Olympics will be built.

Kim Yu-na Dumps Boyfriend After He Goes AWOL from the Military to Visit Massage Parlor

| December 5, 2014

Good news out there for all you single ROK Heads, via the Marmot’s Hole comes news that Kim Yu-na has dumped her hockey player boyfriend:

South Korean figure skating queen Kim Yuna, 24, and ice hockey player Kim Won-jung, 31, have broken up, Korean media reported Tuesday.

Sources said they are unsure when the pair separated.

In August, Sgt. Kim Won-jung, while serving his mandatory military service as an athlete in the military corps, made headlines when he sustained leg injuries after getting in a car accident following a visit to a massage parlor.  [Korea Times]

Here are the details of what Kim Won-jung did to get dumped by Kim Yu-na:

Three ice hockey national team members on active military duty, including the sergeant known to be South Korea’s figure skating icon Kim Yuna’s boyfriend, were discovered to have left their barracks without permission and failed to report a car crash they were involved in, the defense ministry said Wednesday.

On June 27, the three draftees — two sergeants, surnamed Lee and Kim, and a corporal, surnamed Lee — left their training camp in Ilsan, just north of Seoul, in a car owned by one of the sergeants, and went to a massage parlor.

On their way back to the hotel some two hours later, their car was hit by a civilian vehicle, which left sergeant Kim with injuries requiring six weeks of medical treatment and the two with minor bruises, according to the ministry.

Kim reportedly suffered ligament damage on his right knee.  [The Korea Times]

You can read more at the link, but this just seems like one of those only in Korea stories.