S. Korean women’s handball team unrivaled in Asia

The South Korean women’s handball team has swept the Asian Championship for five consecutive events.

Team South Korea crushed Japan 33-24 at the final of the 19th Asian Women’s Handball Championship, which took place at Amman, Jordan on Saturday. Starting with the first group league match against Uzbekistan, South Korea continued its winning spree to join the tournament race. The team has swept the entire six matches including the four matches in the group league. The country has thus swept the five consecutive Asian Championships since the 14th event and clinched the title in a total of 15 events.

South Korea was trailing Japan by 3 or 4 points during early part of Saturday’s match but managed to tie the game 12-12 at 21st minute in the first half. Two minutes later Kim Jin-ee scored an upset goal and then Team Korea started to lead in earnest. By the time the first half ended, South Korea was leading the match 18-14. Right after the second half began, Jeong Yu-ra scored a goal to enable the team to continue robust strides. Then the team instantly widened the score gap to eight points to secure dominance. Jeong Yu-ra scored 11 points overall and Kim Jin-ee garnered four, while goalie Jeong Jin-hee had eight saves to tightly block the goal.

In the third qualifying group match for Group A at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, South Korea narrowly managed to beat Japan (27-24). Analysts who watched the game predicted that Japan could more likely overtake South Korea soon. However, South Korea has a crushing victory over Japan at the latest event, demonstrating its continuously significant leadership over Japan. Kazakhstan ranked third, Iran fourth and Uzbekistan fifth respectively to secure the five berths up for grabs toward the World Championship.

The World Women’s Handball Championship will take place in Spain on December 1. Meanwhile, the couple of referees Park Hyeon-jin and Kim Won-jeong who served as judges at the latest event has been named the best referees.


Bae-Jung Kim wanted@donga.com