Both the men’s and women’s curling teams from the two countries will meet in the preliminary round. The men’s showdown is on Feb. 14 and the women’s teams will meet on Feb. 19. (Image: Yonhap)
GANGNEUNG, South Korea, Feb. 1 (Korea Bizwire) – Several South Korean athletes in ice sports will be sleeping with their enemies during the PyeongChang Winter Olympics.
South Korea and Sweden will be housed in the same apartment building at Gangneung Olympic Village for the Feb. 9-25 competition. Gangneung’s village houses all ice sports athletes, since Gangneung, located just east of the main host city of PyeongChang, will be home to all ice events — figure skating, short track, speed skating, curling and ice hockey.
And in the women’s hockey tournament, South Korea and Sweden will go toe-to-toe in Group B action on Feb. 12.
It will actually be the unified Korean team, made up of 23 South Koreans and 12 North Koreans, going up against world No. 5 country. And the Korean team’s only pre-Olympic tune-up game will be against Sweden on Sunday in Incheon, some 40 kilometers west of Seoul.
Sweden won silver in women’s hockey in 2006. The Europeans beatSouth Korea in back-to-back friendlies last summer, by the scores of 3-0 and 4-1.
In men’s hockey, South Korea is in Group A and Sweden is in Group C. South Korea will face an uphill battle to make it out of Group A against Canada, Czech Republic and Switzerland, while Sweden should have less trouble surviving its group phase against Finland, Norway and Germany. There is an outside chance South Korea, world No. 23, and Sweden, ranked third, could meet in the quarterfinals.
Sweden won silver behind Canada in men’s hockey at the 2014 Olympics.
Both the men’s and women’s curling teams from the two countries will meet in the preliminary round. The men’s showdown is on Feb. 14 and the women’s teams will meet on Feb. 19.
Sweden won two of the past three women’s gold medals in curling.
South Korea has its largest-ever Winter Olympics delegation with144 athletes, and 93 will compete in ice sports.
Sweden has registered 119 athletes, the eighth most, for PyeongChang 2018. It is one of 12 nations to have competed in every Winter Olympics in history, and is ranked seventh all-time with 50 gold medals.
(Yonhap)
