S. Korea captures women’s curling title for final gold at Winter Asiad

South Korea defeated the home team China for the women’s curling title at the Asian Winter Games on Friday, grabbing its 16th and final gold medal of the continental competition.

Led by skip Gim Eun-ji, South Korea capped its undefeated run with a 7-2 victory over China at Harbin Pingfang District Curling Arena in Harbin.

This is South Korea’s first women’s curling gold medal since 2007.

Gim’s team won all eight round-robin games and beat Kazakhstan 10-2 in the semifinals. South Korea then put the icing on the cake with a comfortable victory on Friday.

South Korea scored the first point in the first end, though it tried to blank the end — leaving zero stones in the house — and retain the hammer for the second end for a chance to score multiple points.

But South Korea did grab two points in the second end, capitalizing on a series of Chinese miscues to take a 3-0 lead.

China grabbed two points in the third end to get to within a point, before South Korea regained its two-point lead in the fourth end.

South Korea then stole another point in the sixth end to go up 5-2, when the Chinese skip Wang Rui couldn’t put her final rock into the center of the house despite an open path.

South Korea built a 7-2 advantage in the seventh end. With her final stone, Wang tried to execute a draw past some South Korean rocks and toward the button, but it ended up bumping into a Korean stone en route to the house.

China conceded the game before completing the final end.

Gim, the senior member of the team at 35, thanked her teammates for having her back when she was not on the top of her game.

“I didn’t perform the way I wanted to but my teammates helped out so much,” Gim said. “I felt this was really a team effort.”

Seol Ye-eun said the team’s ultimate goal is to win an Olympic gold medal and they regarded the Asian Games as part of the process.

“We won’t just stop here,” she said. “Through training, we will try to keep getting better and better and put an Olympic gold medal around our neck.”

South Korea finished with three curling medals in Harbin, having earlier picked up silver medals in the men’s and the mixed doubles events.

With 16 gold medals, South Korea tied its Winter Asiad record set at the 2017 competition in Sapporo, Japan.