Podcast S04E11 Olympics Roundup
Opening: make fun of the X war involving the k-pop fans and SEA.
Alright listeners, I’m back from my Seollal vacation! It’s been a few weeks. What’s Korea been up to while I’ve been gone? I’m sure it’s nothing bad *paper sounds*. AI Voice: An internet flame war broke out after a Day6 concert in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia, where some fans called out a Korean fansite for bringing professional camera equipment, which was against venue rules. This escalated when Korean netizens responded with racist remarks, including comparing Southeast Asian women to monkeys. The initial incident sparked a massive backlash, with many Southeast Asians defending Malaysians by sharing their experiences of racism from Koreans. The conflict quickly devolved into a tit-for-tat of racist jokes and insults from both sides. “I leave y'all alone for 5 minutes and you up in some shit, out here starting fires you can't put out! Didn’t Appa tell you not to throw matches into a barn?!” AI Voice: An American joined the fray on X with many racist comments against Southeast Asians, but took too much return fire and deleted his account after getting called out for electing a pedo president. “Didn't yo mama tell you to stay out of grown folks business?! This isn't the cold war anymore! You don't need to be in their affairs trying to topple dominos like you're Henry Kissinger!” AI Voice: The flame war soon drew in participants from other Asian countries and even Brazil and Poland. Then the Korean participants called on Japan and China to help out but got piled on by them instead. “All the trash talk y'all put on them and now you ask for help?! That's like asking your neighbor to help cut down a tree after you made fun of their car. They looked at you like you jumped into an active volcano and said whoops help meeee!” AI Voice: Some insults targeted Korean people’s English speaking ability. “This ain't on us! I told y’all what would happen if you didn't pay attention in hagwon class! This is why we spend Wednesday class on those phonics drills, but nooo you wanted to finish early.” Anyway, what else happened while I was out? Yoon trials, snowstorms, Seollal stuff, feel like I’m forgetting something important…AH! The Winter Olympics in Milan! That happened! Wow the time really flew by! Alright, let’s talk about Korea’s performance in the Olympics. I’m going to take a commercial break to gather my notes! Y’all better not start beef with Tajikistan while I’m refilling my cup! *joke sting*
transition music then talk about the JTBC contract and lack of broadcast TV
One big problem people here had with following the Olympics was that JTBC secured all the broadcasting rights this time. KBS and the other broadcast networks didn’t have any rights, but you could watch on Naver Chzz or whatever it’s called. I saw the Eileen Gu championship runs on Sunday evening. But anyway, this led to the problem of hardly anyone knowing the olympics were going on. In the KoreaTimes, the paper noted the low Nielsen ratings for the opening ceremony and even President Lee said there wasn’t much buzz about it and wanted the government to ramp up promotional efforts. Also the article noted the time zone difference being a factor since the last 2 were in Asia and thusly easier to watch. But I think the biggest reason is the star factor, or lack thereof. There hasn’t been a Kim Yuna since…Kim Yuna. Yeah, speed skater Kim Min-sun and figure skater Cha Jun-hwan could have brought up interest but so far that hasn’t been the case. On Daum Sports at the time I checked on Sunday night, there were a bunch of articles related to the games, but the top story was about Son Heung Min’s team beating Lionel Messi’s team in Major League Soccer. Also this week was Seollal and the President Yoon martial law trial sentencing, so things were busy here. However, President Lee might be interested in pushing JTBC to share broadcasting with other networks in the future since these Olympics barely moved the needle. We’ll see how it plays out. I think the country’s moving a bit past nationalistic sports pride these days so interest will simmer but we’ll see.
Snowboarding
Let’s start our coverage with snowboarding, because that’s the first sport I heard anything about while I was on the road. In the women’s division, Choi Ga On won gold for women’s halfpipe snowboarding, Korea’s first ever. The 17-year old phenom had a bad run in which she injured her leg after a fall but in the final run she aced it and overtook her mentor Chloe Kim to win it all. After the medal round she went to the hospital where it was revealed she had 3 fractures! Talk about grit, determination, and pain management! However, when she got home, new pain entered her life. The Seocho-dong apartment complex residents hung up a banner for her victory in the courtyard, but took it down a day later after netizens complained about her upbringing. They said things like quote “Dirt spoons can’t dream of winning gold” and quote I could have gone to the Olympics if I had money unquote. So you’ve got the angry netnuts trying to spoil this young woman’s victory. Fortunately she wasn’t Korea’s only success in Snowboarding. Yu Seung-eun won bronze in women’s big air and Kim Sang-kyum won Korea’s first medal this season with silver in men's parallel giant slalom. I’m starting to think snowboarding might be Korea’s jam in the future. If Korea’s snowboarders are still winning titles at other events in the future, you might wanna skip the skating and watch this first for 2030.
Skating results
On to Skating, which is where Korea used to shine the brightest. In women’s figure skating, both Lee Hae-in and Shin Ji-a achieved personal best scores but only got into the top 10. Perhaps next Olympics they’ll up their game enough to get medals, but with Liu out there, they’ve got stiff competition to beat. On the men’s side, Cha Jun-hwan overperformed expectations and just barely lost the bronze, a fall after the quadruple toe loop sealing away his chance. Even though he didn’t medal, his 4th place result was Korea’s highest result ever in the sport. In later interviews, he said this wouldn’t be his last Olympics and wants to rest a bit. Take a well-deserved break, Mr. Cha. You’ve definitely earned it! The rest of your compatriots need to get back on the ice, because they ain’t getting it done. No sir.
And now we’re onto the other big skating sport, speed skating. Some good short track news here for Korea, I’m happy to report! Kim Gil-li won gold in women’s 1500 meter and led her team to gold in the 3000 meter relay with Shim Suk-hee as her relay mate. There was a bit of drama in the relay race with the Dutch team falling and making Shim stumble, but she was able to boost her rival Choi forward into second place. Shim Suk-hee is also a 3 time gold medalist in speed skating and was the skater who blew the whistle on her coach’s abusive habits and sexual abuse, sending him to prison in 2021, but subsequent leaks of text messages got her suspended from the 2022 Beijing Olympics. Now at age 29, this could be her last Olympics but we’ll see. Also, Choi Minjeong is near retirement as well and she ended this Olympics with a gold and a silver for women’s 1500 meter, giving her the most medals by a Korean athlete. For Kim Gil-li, this seems like the start of a long successful career. How’d the men do? Not too bad, with Hwang Daeheon winning silver in men’s 1500 meter, Rim Jongun won bronze in men’s 1000 meter, and team Korea winning silver in the 5000 meter relay. Unfortunately, Korea did not medal in regular speed skating, the first time this has happened in 24 years. They got as close as 5th place in men’s mass start. Yeah, we ain’t going far in this sport as long as Jordan Stolz is in his prime. It’s like every other team trying to beat Jordan’s Bulls in the 90s. You can come close, but you ain’t winning. *joke sting*
Curling results
In curling, team 5G got as far as 5th place, losing to bronze medal winner Canada. They didn’t have the greatest run in these olympics, but they did beat Japan 7 to 5 so they can hang their hat on that in the offseason. Also the Japanese press noted their efforts and praised their looks, calling them the beautiful squad. OK there, Japanese sports journalists. Y’all not wrong about their looks, but I wouldn’t put that in the article. What else they say about the team? *papers rusting* "Seol Ye-eun, noted for her translucent beauty --- yoooo, Japan Daily Sports journalist! Do you have a crush on Seol Ye-eun? You are doing too much, sir! Do I need to get out the spray bottle? *joke sting*
Other results and future hopes
At the end of the Olympics, the Korean Olympic chief Ryu Seung-min said he considered the Olympics results a partial success and wanted to get more funding for winter sports. He also spoke about Ga-on winning gold even though she had to train overseas because Korea doesn’t have inflatable airbags for halfpipe training. Secretary General Kim Na-mi spoke about the lack of a halfpipe in Korea for her to train on even though Korea had halfpipe at the 2018 Olympics. Ryu also said there were instances where Korea could have won gold but got outmuscled and outperformed by bigger and stronger competitors, which I hope isn’t a dig at teams using steroids again *joke sting* because we KNOW who is well known for that cough cough Russia cough cough.
Oh and of course, there was a flag fuck up. There’s always a flag fuck up. The Olympics produces flags based on designs the national teams send them, but something happened and they printed out a flag that had the taegugki part at the wrong angle. The organizing committee had used a version in which the central Taegeuk symbol was noticeably rotated several degrees counterclockwise during the podium ceremony for some of the speed skating! Look, I don’t know why the IOC won’t let teams bring their own flags. That would make the most sense! I mean, you wanna be accurate, right? Right? *joke sting*
Plug for Royal Kandy Tours
A shoutout to Nalinda at Royal Kandy Tours for making my trips to Sri Lanka extra special! If you ever travel to the island, look up his tour company on Tripadvisor. Trust me, you don’t want to deal with dodging elephants and tuk-tuks in a rental car.
Worst Persons
It’s that time, folks! Who’s the worst person in the Korean Sports World?!
The Nap Award goes to… Hong Myung-bo the coach of the Men’s national football team. Recently, midfielder Paik Seung-ho of Birmingham City injured his shoulder during a match on the 11th against West Bromwich Albion, according to reports at Yonhap News. This is the 3rd serious midfielder injury for his team and forward Hwang Hee Chan’s out for several weeks as well. The team’s going to be delivered to the training ground in Mexico on stretchers at this rate! I know Coach Hong wasn’t a fan of the K-League players but he needs to change his mind about them.
And we have an update for the Radon award! Do you remember wayy back to the summer of last year when the 서울시민리그 player bashed another player in the back of the head? Yeah, that case went to court. According to JTBC news, the Seoul district court ruled on the 13th that the player will get 4 months in prison, pending appeal. The victim still has trauma and said he reminisces about the blow when he sees green grass. Thanks to Otto Silver for posting about the case on Reddit.
Finally we are on the Plutonium Award and you know who it’s going to! Those Lotte Giants players Na Seung-yeop, Go Seung-min, Kim Dong-hyeok and Kim Se-min got suspended for gambling and inappropriately touching the staff member at a gambling venue in Tainan Taiwan. The harassment charges have been dropped for now according to reports in the Chosun Biz, but the police are still investigating the scene as well as the CCTV showing 3 of the 4 players in the venue. Anyway, Lotte has had a lot of problems with misbehaving players this decade, including one who made child porn and tried to lie his way out of trouble to team investigators. This incident was so embarrassing to the team that they canceled the uniform run for fans on March 19th. So thanks, boys! You really hit it out of the park this time! You’re today's WORST PERSONS IN THE SPORTS WORLD!
Ending
Thank you for tuning in today. We hope you learned something about Korean Sports because if you didn’t, you set the sleep timer too soon *joke sting*. Pass this pod on to anyone interested in Korean sports and especially rookies because trust me they need every ounce of help we can pour on them. If you don’t believe me, spend 5 minutes on Living in Korea subreddit *Joke sting*. If you wish to read along or contact the show, visit our website at hwatingsportspodcast dot com or our Facebook page and everything you need is right there. Give our podcast 5 stars if you have time. Music notes like the opening song thanks to DumiAFava. You can reach him on Instagram @daf_daffy247. Cover art thanks to our cycling expert James! A shoutout to our listeners in… what the hell is this? Cockermouth, Cumbria?! Is this an actual place? (typing sound) Yes, it is! Apparently it is the home of the Wordsworth siblings, Fletcher Christian the Bounty mutineer and has a famous cricket team. So why am I not surprised it’s in England? They got a lot of wild place names there. Never change, England towners! We will be back on Feb 27th with a K-League preview! Until next time, wonderful listeners!
(AI voice) Guests of the Hwa-ting sports podcast get Vampire Facelift done at Fang Junction in dynamic Daejeon! Do you have too many wrinkles? Have a sudden urge to resemble the Queen of the damned? The skin care specialists at Fang Junction will make you look 10 years younger in no time! Not approved by any medical board. If you have an urge to drink blood you had the wrong treatment. Consult a priest ASAP.
Notes
Why South Koreans are tuning out 2026 Winter Olympics - The Korea Times
Snowboarder Kim Sang-kyum wins stunning silver for Korea's 1st medal
Choi Ga-on Wins South Korea's First Snow Sports Gold
From hardship to fellowship: Short tracker Shim Suk-hee reclaims gold at Games
Short track relay team brings 2nd gold to S. Korea; curling team nears knockout berth
S. Korea captures gold in women's short track relay
Buddhist blessing behind South Korea's rising snowboard stars
NC Dinos playing MLB teams - GOTW
KIA playing spring training games in Okinawa - GOTW
Lotte Giants suspend players after Taiwan illegal gambling scandal - CHOSUNBIZ
[단독] 축구 경기 중 ‘뒤통수 가격’…"단순 반칙 아냐" 실형 선고