Seoul: Following her Winter Olympic debut in Russia in 2014, South Korean curler Gim Eun-ji has had to wait a dozen years to return to the competition. And with the next Winter Games about a month away in Italy, Gim said Friday she wants to make sure her long wait was a worthy one. "I will be back in the Olympics for the first time in 12 years, and I don't want all that time away to go to waste," Gim said at a joint press conference for the national curling teams in Seoul on Friday. "I will come home with a gold medal around my neck."
According to Yonhap News Agency, Gim, 35, will be the skip for the women's team, which also includes Kim Su-ji, Kim Min-ji, Seol Ye-eun, and Seol Ye-ji. South Korea will also compete in the mixed doubles event with Kim Seon-yeong and Jeong Yeong-seok flying the flag.
In Sochi in 2014, Gim was a member of skip Kim Ji-sun's women's team, the first South Korean curling squad to compete at a Winter Games. South Korea finished eighth in the round robin with a 3-6 record to fall well short of the medal round.
For the next two Olympics, another women's team, led by Kim Eun-jung, represented South Korea, winning silver on home soil in 2018 and finishing eighth in Beijing four years later. Over the years, Gim emerged as skip and beat out Kim Eun-jung's squad for the right to compete at the 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympics.
Gim and Co. are No. 3 in the world rankings, behind Switzerland and Canada, and as the 2024 world bronze medalists, South Korea will be rightfully regarded as a medal contender in Italy next month. "Of course, our objective is to win a medal," Seol Ye-eun said. "We also want to put on an entertaining show."
Her twin sister, Seol Ye-ji, added that she and her teammates have been using virtual reality (VR) technology in training. "With VR devices, we have been training as if we are actually inside an arena surrounded by fans in the stands," she said. "I think that experience will help us relax a bit once we get to the Olympics."
The team is scheduled to travel to Canada on Saturday for the Players' Championship, the final leg of the 2025-2026 Grand Slam of Curling season. Then it will be back to the National Training Center in the central town of Jincheon, some 85 kilometers south of Seoul, for the final tuneup.
In the mixed doubles event, Kim Seon-yeong will become the first South Korean curler to compete at three consecutive Olympics. She was with the women's team for 2018 and 2022, and then joined Jeong to grab the final ticket to Italy at the Olympic Qualification Event in Canada last month.
"I am grateful for this opportunity to compete at my third Olympics," the 32-year-old said. "I will trust my experience and trust my chemistry with Yeong-seok." For the 30-year-old Jeong, this will be his first Olympics. "I started my curling career with my sights set on the Olympics, and I will try to enjoy every moment of it," he said. "I want to prove to the world that our mixed doubles team is a force to be reckoned with. This will be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I want to make the most of it."