2-man bobsledders fall short of expectations

The Korea Times

The Korea Times

Mon, September 25, 2023 | 03:18

2018 PyeongChang

2-man bobsledders fall short of expectations

Posted : 2018-02-19 00:00

Updated : 2018-02-19 16:22

Korea's Won Yun-jong, front, and Seo Young-woo start their PyeongChang Olympics two-man bobsleigh run in heat 1 at the Olympic Sledding Center, Sunday. / Yonhap

By Nam Hyun-woo

Korea's bobsleigh tandem Won Yun-jong and Seo Young-woo fell short of their high expectations, placing ninth after their two heat races at the PyeongChang Winter Games two-man bobsleigh.

The duo clocked a combined time of 1:38.89, after posting 49.50 seconds in the first heat and 49.49 seconds in the second.

Leading the race so far is the German duo of Nico Walther and Christian Poser with 1:38.39, followed by Justin Kripps and Alexande Kopacz of Canada with 1:38.49 and Johannes Lochner and Christopher Weber of Germany with 1:38.58

Expectations were high for the Won-Seo duo as they were No. 1 in the 2015-16 World Cup Rankings. They have been on a downturn in recent years, though, slipping to No. 3 in 2016-17 and No. 21 in 2017-18.

In men's curling, Korea was beaten 8-9 by Denmark after taking the game to a tiebreaking extra end.

After the loss, the Koreans fell to 1-5 overall with their bid for the semi-finals virtually over.

Korea was trailing Denmark 6-8 after nine ends, but extended the game into an extra end on a mistake by Denmark in the 10th, which gave Korea two points.

With Denmark having the hammer, Korea landed two stones in the house on its last shot but had to watch Denmark laying its last stone near the button.

In the biathlon, Korea's Timofei Lapshin finished 25th in the men's 15 kilometer mass start after completing the race in 38:07.4.

France's Martin Fourcade collected the gold with 35:47.3. Germany's Simon Schempp also finished the distance at 35:47.3 but the photo finish found Fourcade was slightly ahead of Schempp.

In alpine skiing, Korea's Kim Dong-woo placed 39th in the men's giant slalom after clocking a combined 2:30.05 for his two runs. Kim recorded 1:14.49 in his first run, finishing 43rd and 1:15.56 in his second run to finish 41st.

Kim's teammate Jung Dong-hyun failed to finish the first run.

Austria's Marcel Hirscher won the event with 2:18.04, followed by Henrik Kristoffersen of Norway with 2:19.31 and Alexis Pinturault of France with 2:19.35.

namhw@ktimes.com