Korean Curlers Continue Charmed Run Into Final

South Korea's curlers edged arch rivals Japan 8-7 in a tie-break to continue their fairytale journey all the way to Sunday's Olympic Games women's final.

Gangneung, South Korea, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 23rd Feb, 2018 ) :South Korea's curlers edged arch rivals Japan 8-7 in a tie-break to continue their fairytale journey all the way to Sunday's Olympic Games women's final.

The team's charismatic bespectacled skip Kim Eun-jung threw the winning stone in the 11th end late Friday to seal a nip and tuck semi-final that had the raucous 3,000 capacity crowd on the edge of their seats for three gripping hours at the Gangneung Curling Centre.

The Garlic Girls, as the hosts' team are known, will face Sweden who beat Britain comfortably 10-5 with an end to spare in the other semi-finals. Kim said their group stage loss to Japan, their only defeat, had given them motivation to turn the tables.

"We were very upset that we lost our last match against Japan and felt sorry to all the fans who gave us their support. "So when we had to face them again I think it gave us a clear sense of purpose to win, and also there are other reasons that we have to win against Japan compared to other teams." Japan coach JD Lind said while it was disappointing to lose, "Korea played awesome and our girls did too".

In the bronze medal match, Japan will face the 2002 Olympic champions Britain who were trailing 8-5 by the eighth end with two-time gold medallists from Vancouver 2010 and Turin 2006 Sweden clinching the game in the ninth.

Eve Muirhead was skipping the British women at her third Olympics, and will now target a repeat of the bronze they collected in Sochi four years ago. This was their second loss to the smooth Scandinavians in Pyeongchang after the controversial group phase defeat.

"We gave it our all," Muirhead told the BBC. "The Swedish girls were on fire." Curling meanwhile, while having a long way to go to match the popularity of sports like short track speed skating, is really taking off in South Korea.

That was only too evident at the 3,000-capacity venue where fans roared and clapped at each deft move made by the South Korean curlers. Supporters chanted "Dae-han-min-guk (Republic of Korea)!" as they clapped rhythmically in unison.

Some were waving mini South Korean flags and others held up placards saying "Let's go with the gold" and "Let's go straight to the finals". Kim Min-ji, 27, from Daejeon, said: "I was never interested in curling but randomly bought a ticket for the semi-finals and I'm so happy that I can cheer for our team.