The Korean National Bobsleigh Team has won the bronze medal during the 2008 American Cup competition held at Salt Lake City. But like the Jamaican team at the 88 Winter Olympics, the Korean team had had its share of hardships. First it had only three members including the coach, but because of “budgetary problems” only the coach and one other member could go to Salt Lake City. The team had to recruit two other athletes to fill in spots for the four person part of the competition. They also had to rent a bobsleigh for 470 thousand Won(about USD 500) which had “SALT LAKE CITY 2002″ emblazoned on the side(pic below). The two person bobsleigh that the team used is reported to have “USA” emblazoned on it.
Kudos to the Korean team for winning the bronze despite the difficulties. And shame on the Korean government for not providing the support that the team needed.
44 Comments
Koreans are starting to make small breakthroughs in sporting events that have been traditionally off limits like figure skating, gymnastics, swimming, ski jumping, and now bob sledding. What’s the factor behind some of these improvements?
shame on the korean government for not providing the support that the needed? should the government fund every fringe activity that one of its citizens engages and wants to compete in? Do a google search for this event.
Well, mjw glad you dropped by with your uhm unique form of criticism. The government “funds” national sports teams here. In this case shouldn’t it at least provide these guys with a decent bobsleigh and the ability for all team members to participate?
Agree with number two. In my native Australia elite/pro sports are sponsored up the yahoo through the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) system as well as by state and local governments subsidizing stadiums for big teams. I read somewhere that the cost per gold medal is around $1million Australian. I really don’t think it is fair for the taxpayer to be lumped with the bill for this kind of thing. Better to source such monies in the private sector.
hey mins, why don’t you can the crap. like i said before, if you cant stand the heat get the fuck out of the kitchen.
my criticism is valid. before you posted on this, did you do any research? Google the event in salt lake city and tell me what you find.
also, (and i say this from the perspective of a canadian living in korea) bobsledding itself is a bullshit event and not all bullshit events get funding when the national priorities are set. HOWEVER: now that these guys have won, perhaps they’ll capture a bit of imagination and either a corporate sponsor or the government will put up the money. in that case, all you can do is tip your cap and applaud the guys for sticking with their dreams and getting people to notice their success. that’s the way it shoudl be done, not just throwing money at every asshole that gets it in his melon to go out and try for some sport that no one cares about.
I’ll side with mjw and Aaron. As distasteful as the commercialization of the Olympics is, private sponsorship is still preferable to using tax money to buy bragging rights. Now if only we could figure out how to get Coca Cola and Nike to build stadiums for us.
Jeez mjw, what’s got you this morning? Showing your true colors?
Although it may be preferable for the private sector to pick up the tab, the reality is, sports especially those involving the national teams here are more or less funded and in some ways directed by the government. And if I remember correctly, I believe the government laid out plans to branch out from Korea’s “traditional” winter sports medal winners such as short track. Which is why we are seeing a lot of Kim Yun-ah lately. Now these guys were probably put up to doing the bobsleigh, instead of them waking up one morning and saying “Hey let’s go out and bobsleigh!” So, in this case shouldn’t the government at least give them the support they need, such as a decent bobsleigh? If they aren’t willing to support the bobsleigh team, then why start it in the first place?
Of course if the private sector is willing to sponsor them, well no arguments there.
In regards to Sonagi’s comment, why do I get the feeling that Pawi will pop up, do his evil laugh, and say “See I told you so! The Expat has betrayed you!”
#7,
Yeah, I don’t think Brian Orser is the cheapest coach they could have hired. When you look at her choreographies, and compare them to some of the other skaters’, it’s obvious someone is investing an awful lot of money in her.
Aaron is an expat. I have been repatriated as my flag shows.
BTW. It’s relatively common for teams to rent sleds. It’s not a big deal.
…but the lack of funding for sending the full team, though…
#10.
Yes, but to Pawi, everyone in the Hole who is not Korean or critical of Korea is an “expat.”
what got into me is your snyde comments. instead of evaluating what i’m saying and then calling BS, you see my initials and your knee jerks. if i’m not right, say so. but don’t crap on about my particular brand of criticism or whatever other idiotic remark you made. that’s garbage.
as for the rest of your rebuttal, it’s clear you didn’t take the time to really understand what i wrote. i never stated a preference for private sector money. what i said was this: currently bobsledding is not on the map here in Korea for sports that receive funding. i don’t know why that is but that’s the way it is. the basic principle is that a society has to agree on it and in this case these bobsledding guys got nothing. is this the travesty that you’ve painted? No. These guys did really well and have a chance to change minds about the sport and get some public funding. good for them and hopefully someone will dole out some money so they can fuck around riding down a narrow shoot of ice and generally having fun.
mjw, who’s crapping who?
who’s crapping who?
what the hell does that even mean?
Hey..i’ve tried to throw up the white flag to you any number of times. You rejected it each time with a snyde comment. let me try again: one reason why we interact here, IMHO, is to have reasonable info/opinion exchange. guys like pawi and others ruin that but their pattern doesn’t have to be what we follow. we don’t have to always agree but we don’t have to always shit on each other. even in times when i expressed my agreement with you, you found something snyde to write back. my suggestion is give it a rest and lets find some common ground. in the case of the bobsledding thing, i think we’re both happy that they won. i’m not even that opposed to government funding for them and agree that korea should be represented propoerly.
mjw, I find your methodology sort of interesting. First of all you provoke a confrontation and when I respond, you take the role of trying to “cool me down.” Now you accuse me of “synde remarks”, may I ask what you consider of the comments below?
As you said, if you disagree, please say that you disagree, just like aaronm and Sonagi above but don’t resort to patronizing and put downs to foward your argument. This is what I meant by your unique form of criticism.
well, it’s certainly interesting that you’ve adopted a time-tested method of the media: cutting stuff and taking them out of context. but that’s fine, i deal with that stuff all the time.
But have you done the search? yes or no? If you had, you’d find that this was a NOTHING event. i couldn’t even find anything about it other than the garbage articles you referred to in the Korean newspapers. My point, if you had put on your thinking cap for one second instead of being offended by seeing my initials was that maybe, just maybe, the government didn’t contribute anything to sending these guys because it the event has NO SIGNIFICANCE.
Did you do the google search? Check out some SL City websites. If you find something let me know. If not, then your whole post is virtually moot because all you’ve done is depend on some BS articles in a Korean rag.
This was the entirety of my original comment:
shame on the korean government for not providing the support that the needed? should the government fund every fringe activity that one of its citizens engages and wants to compete in? Do a google search for this event.
I was NOT provoking a confrontation. I was merely raising a question about something that you had written. If you can’t handle that kind of criticism, well, the hot kitchen advice once again applies.
Hmmm…ordering around and trashing a blog poster, because one does not agree with the poster. You may not be Pawi, but you sure act like him.
It looks like that you are the one who can’t stand a little criticism.
Ordering around?? Would your sensibilities have been less offended had I politely asked, “please please, with sugar and cheese, do a google search.”?
How old are you?
And, in my very first post, can any tell me how I “trashed the blogger”? There was no ad hominem attack, mins. I took issue with your opinion, not you. There’s a difference.
AND I’M NEVER GOING TO COMMENT ON YOUR THREADS AGAIN!!! IT’S NOT WORTH IT!!!
You two need a time out.
Put your heads on your desks for thirty minutes.
I am already in the middle of my time out. Don’t know about mjw, though.
This is fucking bullshit.
Mins.. you have edited my comment in 21. And, when I pointed out that you did it, you erased my followup comment.
WTF is your problem?
Don’t know who’s responsible, but I’ll vouch that I saw the pre-edited comment in 21 and mjw’s follow-up comment.
mjw,
Think for a moment. Let’s say for the sake of argument that I did the things that you are accusing me of. Then I would suggest that you look up at the comments section. You will notice that you had a free hand to express your views including some four letter words. So since you had your time dissing me and my point for the entire world to see, what would I possibly gain from doing the things that you are accusing me of? Now if I really wanted to muzzle you I would have done it from comment #5, and not waste my time with you in this manner.
I believe I should be the one asking the question “WTF is your problem?”
Anyways, I’ve declared my peace regarding this thread. If you want to rant on with your four letter words, be my guest.
huh?
I think he’s saying he didn’t touch your comments.
Yeah… I think that’s what he’s saying, too. But he’s also pointing out that he has authority on this blog to delete at his own discretion. And I think that is wrong. This is not the first time this kind of thing has happened to me when I respond to a mins post on this blog. But, it is the only time it has happened to me when I have posted on this blog. Draw your own conclusions. I would also note that the edits to my post above are still there.
Mins, if you have any self-respect, you will at least admit that someone deleted one of my posts and edited my post in #21. Those final two lines in ALL CAPS
Next we will have the banana telling the twinkie that it’s a darker yellow.
Bring it on.
I will admit that I did see the “ALL CAPS” when I responded to dogbertt’s comment on #23. After that I was during my time out and wasn’t looking at this thread, so I cannot say that I saw the comment that was supposedly deleted.
You said please so I’m inclined to oblige. But on the other hand, you said that the authority I have is wrong. Nah, I’ll leave it as it is.
swlee — interesting choice of words for that analogy.
Regarding the comment controversy — I’d prefer to do the deleting myself. If someone wants something deleted, send me an email.
i specifically asked you to delete #29 and yet you deleted the other one. there’s only one word for that kind of shit.
Sorry. That was my bad. Just assumed they were a double post.
mjw, please read my comment in #31.
irrespective of mins delicate sensibilities regarding my use of four letter words, robert, the integrity of the blog is at stake here. as i have written elsewhere, i appreciate your hands off approach to allowing guests to post and the fact that you don’t get involved in the BS that ensues. that’s what makes the blog cool. because it doesn’t need to be moderated. but when someone (who? I really don’t know. so, my apologies, min.) starts to delete and edit comments, your blog develops a problem and slows starts down the road towards not being a cool blog.
“delicate sensibilities”? And all this because I pointed out that mjw used more four letter words per commentator in a single thread.
And to think that I once thought mjw was a nice guy.
that’s rich.
I’ve seen two other posts that were deleted. They were written by barbarian and cm about mins, not abusive but critical towards mins. There’s a slight chance those posts are sitting somewhere and I just haven’t seen them, but I’m positive those posts no longer exist where they should.
mins, I’m not sure what you did or didn’t do to mjw’s post, but what you seem to have achieved is getting mjw to post in somewhat coherent paragraphs, instead of his usually tourrette’s-inspired multi-single line barrages of two or three posts in series.
Sonagi will be pleased to see this development.
angRRRy AzN PrYde hoLLa from de OUTbacK bling bling da PEEPS!
cmm, that’s an interesting comment. but i think you’ve got the wrong poster. usually my posts are long winded tourrettes inspired, not single line.
Please accept my fullest apologies. You’re right. I wasn’t paying attention and I confused you for the mets fan. Stupid mistake.
Don’t be too hard on yourself. The monikers “mjw” and “wjk”, plus the small letters can get very confusing.