Curling - Team Republic of Korea

Republic of Korea are the defending Olympic silver medallists at Beijing 2022

The nation scored their first-ever curling medal at PyeongChang 2018 in front of an enraptured crowd at Gangneung, besting their inaugural eighth-place at Sochi 2014. Kim Eun-jung’s semi-final victory over Japan’s Satsuki Fujisawa has been declared one of the greatest women’s curling matches ever played.

With a husband and new baby in tow, Kim set the stage for her return, and her team – with a couple of lineup changes – grabbed one of the last Olympic berths available at the 2021 World Qualifying Event at Leeuwarden.

At World Championships, Korea has one medal, a bronze won in 2019 by Kim Min-ji, the heir apparent to Kim Eun-jung. The latter has placed sixth, fifth and seventh in three appearances (2017, 2018, 2021).

This season, Team Kim is 43-16 with top-three finishes in all five events: a World Curling Tour win in Alberta, silver at the Pacific-Asia Championships, and third-place finishes at the OQE, a Grand Slam tournament and another WCT event. They have a solid 8.46 points per game average compared to an average 5.80 points against.

In head-to-head battles with the Beijing field, Team Kim is 45-48 lifetime and 16-18 over the past four years. They have Great Britain’s number overall (10-3) but are 3-3 since PyeongChang, and despite a career 4-7 mark against Sweden – including a loss in the 2018 Olympic final – they are 2-0 since that match. The Koreans are streaky with Switzerland, losing their last three but had previously won three straight – after losing five straight. They’ve also lost all three games played against Japan since that semi-final victory in PyeongChang.

World Ranking: 3rd (62.025 pts)

© Data by Sports Data Warehouse