Asia Winter Festival to be held for the first time in 8 years..."Leave Kim to hunt"
Asia Winter Festival to be held for the first time in 8 years..."Leave Kim to hunt"
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Choi Min-jeong (27), Kim Ki-li (21, short track), Kim Min-sun (26, speed skating), Cha Jun-hwan (24), and Lee Chae-woon (19), centered on Gen Z (born in 1996-2010), will heat up Harbin, Heilongjiang Province, China, where the 9th Winter Asian Games will be held, for eight days from the 7th of next month.
Asia's Winter Sports Festival, which will be held for the first time in eight years since the Sapporo Asian Games in Japan in 2017, is just a week away. With the slogan of "Dream of Winter, Love among Asia," more than 1,300 athletes from 34 Asian countries will compete for 64 gold medals in 11 sub-sports in six sports, including ice skating, skiing, curling, ice hockey, biathlon and mountain skiing.
Korea will send a total of 223 athletes, including 149 athletes, 52 athletes, and 22 athletes at its headquarters. Korea, which ranked second overall (16 gold, 18 silver, and 16 bronze) in the previous competition, has set its sights on the second overall in this year's competition by banking on its "young blood." In this year's competition, Korea is pinning its hopes on short-track speed skating, a sport that has traditionally paid off. Choi Min-jeong, who returned to the ice after a year off, will take the lead in the short-track skating team, which naturally underwent a generational change after the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. Having acquired five medals in the Olympics alone (2 gold medals in Pyeongchang, 1 gold and 2 in Beijing), Choi is considered a strong candidate for gold in the 1,000- and 1,500-meter events.
Emerging ace Kim Ki-li is paired with Choi Min-jeong. Kim, who emerged as a leading player by winning the women's all-around title at the 2023-2024 World Cup, finished preheating by winning five gold medals at the recently concluded Turin Universiade. Park Ji-won (29), the strongest player in men's category, will take the lead. Having been named the Crystal Globe (the season's most valuable player) for the past two consecutive seasons, Kim will compete with Lin Xiaojun (Korean name Lim Hyo-joon), Sandor Liu, and Shaoang Liu, who have naturalized as Chinese citizens, for the gold medal.
In speed skating, Kim Min-sun, the "New Skating Empress," will run in gold. She made her name widely with five gold medals and one silver medal in the 500-meter events of the first to sixth World Cups of the ISU in the 2022-2023 season. Kim, who will compete in the 100-meter, 1,000-meter, and team sprint events, aimed to win medals in all events.
Cha Jun-hwan, the "Figure Prince," is aiming to win the first medal in Korean men's single competition. In the women's single competition, Choi Sang-bin (2017 Sapporo gold) and Kwak Min-jeong (2011 Astana·Almaty copper) won medals, but no male single competitor has won the gold medal. In the women's curling event, the Gyeonggi provincial government 5G will wear the national flag and aim for the first Asian Games gold medal in 18 years. Four of the five players (Kim Eun-ji, Kim Su-ji, Seol Ye-ji, and Seol Ye-eun, Kim Min-ji) end with "Ji," and the other one, Seol Ye-eun (29), is nicknamed "5G" because her nickname is a pig. Earlier this month, they beat Gangneung City Hall of Kim (Kim Eun-jung, Kim Kyung-ae, Kim Cho-hee, Kim Sun-young and Kim Young-mi), who won the silver medal at the Pyeongchang Olympics, to win the first title. 메이저놀이터
Lee Chae-woon, the snowboard men's halfpipe gold medalist, is also a strong candidate. He won the gold medal at the age of 16 at the 2023 International Ski Federation (FIS) World Championships, becoming the youngest ever (16 years and 10 months) winner. Lee Seung-hoon, 20, who became the first Korean to win a medal at the halfpipe World Cup, is also a dark horse that will shine at the championships.