7 hours Ago By Korea Bizwire
Members of the South Korean women’s national curling team pose for photos after a press conference at the Olympic Center in Seoul on March 12, 2025. From left: head coach Shin Dong-ho, curlers Gim Eun-ji, Kim Min-ji, Kim Su-ji, Seol Ye-ji and Seol Ye-eun. (Image courtesy of Yonhap) SEOUL, March 12 (Korea Bizwire) — Members of the South Korean women’s national curling team said Wednesday they will try to come through with a gold medal at the upcoming women’s world championship on home ice.
South Korea will host the LGT World Women’s Curling Championship from Saturday to March 23 at Uijeongbu Indoor Ice Rink in Uijeongbu, some 20 kilometers north of Seoul. The competition will begin with a 13-team round robin. Then the top six teams will qualify for the playoff round, with the two best teams each receiving a bye to the semifinals and the remaining four competing for the last two semifinal berths.
South Korea will be led by skip Gim Eun-ji, who guided the country to the gold medal at the Asian Winter Games in Harbin, China, in February. South Korea is No. 3 in the world.
She will be joined by the same quartet of teammates from Harbin: Kim Min-ji, Kim Su-ji, Seol Ye-eun and Seol Ye-ji. The same lineup grabbed the bronze medal at the 2024 worlds but the curlers said they believe they can go even higher this year. “After the Asian Games, we took some time off to rest and recover, and over the past two weeks, we’ve been trying to address some shortcomings from the Asian Games,” Gim said at the national team press conference at the Olympic Center in Seoul.
“I could see everyone was in great form in training sessions. I felt pretty confident we could reach the highest place on the podium at the world championship.” Members of the South Korean women’s national curling team share a laugh during a press conference at the Olympic Center in Seoul on March 12, 2025.
From left: head coach Shin Dong-ho, curlers Gim Eun-ji, Kim Min-ji, Kim Su-ji, Seol Ye-ji and Seol Ye-eun. (Image courtesy of Yonhap) Gim, also the senior member of the team at 35, said she has tried to stress the power of positive thinking with her teammates. “I just think that you have to stay positive to be able to overcome any challenge,” she added.
The top two nations, Switzerland and Canada, will also be in Uijeongbu, plus all the other teams inside the top 10 in the world rankings. South Korea will begin the competition against world No. 5 Japan on Saturday.
Considering the longstanding sporting rivalry between the two nations and the importance of first matches at competitions, Gim admitted there will be pressure on her side from the get-go. “We will have to shake off the pressure the best we can at the beginning,” she added. “Rather than thinking about our opponents, we will focus on our own performance.
If we start worrying about who we’re playing, then it will just add to the pressure.” Head coach Shin Dong-ho said he doesn’t want his athletes to feel the burden and added, “I will do all the worrying. I hope our curlers will just enjoy the competition.
” “We will be up against some really good teams like Canada, Switzerland and Sweden,” Shin continued. “But I think our curlers have had plenty of experience from last year’s world championship and other events. I am sure they will thrive here.
” At the world championship, South Korea will try to lock down a spot at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy. The top seven teams in points earned from the 2024 and 2025 world championships will book their tickets to Milan, and South Korea is in a good position after earning 11 points with its bronze medal at the 2024 worlds. The bigger hurdle may be the national team trials ahead of the Olympics, though Kim Su-ji isn’t worried.
“We feel confident we will be the team representing the country at the Olympics,” she said. “This is a great opportunity for us to go up against strong teams before the Olympics.” All five members are from Uijeongbu and they all graduated from the same high school in the city.
They spoke of getting recognized by fans on streets — in the case of Kim Su-ji, at a local gas station — and of wanting to give those fans something to cheer about this month. “Uijeongbu is our home and this will be the first international curling event in our city,” Kim Min-ji said. “We want to reward our fans with good results.
” Seol Ye-ji and Ye-eun, twin sisters, said their friends have been asking them for tickets to the world championship, and they don’t want to let them down. “It was disappointing to settle for just the bronze medal last year,” Ye-ji said. “I really want to win gold on home ice this time.
” After the round robin, the qualification games for the semifinals are set for the morning of March 22, followed by the semifinals later in the day. The bronze medal game and the gold medal contest will both be March 23. The women’s world championship began in 1979, and South Korea’s best performance remains the silver medal from the 2022 event in Canada.
(Yonhap).
