“The Curling World Championships will be held in Gangneung? Will ‘Team Kim’ participate?”
This is the reaction of the taxi driver to the reporter’s request to go to the Gangneung Curling Center where the ‘2023 World Mixed Doubles and Senior Curling Championships’ will be held from the accommodation for coverage.
Few Gangneung citizens knew about the World Curling Championships held from the 21st to the 29th at the Gangneung Curling Center and Gangneung Hockey Center.
The citizens I met at the restaurant in front of the accommodation knew about the recent sluggish professional soccer game, Gangwon FC, but did not know that the world curling competition was held in Gangneung.
In fact, at the entrance to Gangneung from the highway, there was a large banner for the 2023 Gangneung World Choral Competition to be held in July, and the placards on telephone poles throughout the city were only Gangwon FC game information promotional materials.
Promotional materials announcing the World Curling Championships could only be seen at the Gangneung Curling Center or the Gangneung Hockey Center.
There were only two domestic and foreign reporters including reporters who covered the World Championships, which opened on the 21st.
The event organizing committee and the Korea Curling Federation Media Communication Committee virtually neglected the coverage of the event by reporters.
The World Curling Federation’s (WCF) AD card (Accreditation Card) official authentication method was notified to the reporters the day before the competition, and it takes about 3 days to apply, but the Korea Curling Federation Media Communication Committee sent a request for AD coverage to reporters on the day of the competition. The de facto dereliction of duty of failing to take even the most basic procedures to communicate with the media was the opening ceremony without reporters.
Since the event was not even known, there were no general spectators at the Gangneung Hockey Center where the Senior World Championships were held on the opening day.
Even when I tried to cover it, the lack of preparation for the competition was revealed in many places. Photo position POPs were created by reporters directly in the coverage area, and there were no media booths, so on-site coverage was difficult.
In a situation where an interpreter was needed to communicate with the players on the field, when an e-mail was sent to the organizing committee, only an answer was returned that they would review it.
Above all, there were very few people with experience in international competitions, which led to a situation where a very small number of people with previous experience were in charge of the whole.
Dispatch and guidance of transportation vehicles are important for the movement of the athletes, but the location of the transport is not fixed, causing confusion among the athletes.
A reporter who met on the spot said, “It’s the worst coverage environment. I don’t know what the organizing committee and the Korea Curling Federation Media Communication Committee have prepared. Rather, it has become an international competition that is worse than the Korean Curling Championships.” 토토사이트
This lack of preparation and lack of publicity was predicted even before the Games.
On the 10th ahead of the tournament, interested reporters gathered at the ‘Korea Curling Federation Media Day’ held at the Olympic Parktel in Songpa-gu, Seoul.
Initially, in the event guide sent to reporters, the Curling Federation asked to attend, saying, “We would like to hold a press conference to welcome the inauguration of the new president and the 2023 World Mix Double/Senior Curling Championships to be held in Gangneung from the 22nd.”
However, more athletes than reporters participated, overshadowing the purpose of the event as a ‘press conference’. In addition, actor Kim Bo-seong, a public relations ambassador for the hospital run by the chairman, suddenly appeared and shouted ‘Loyalty!’, reminiscent of an event event.
Due to the rushed schedule of the event, Jung Byung-jin (Seoul City Hall), the representative player of Mixdouble, was not able to attend, and the reporters who attended the event were confused because it was an event that put forward only future plans rather than promoting and covering the world competition.
The reporters in attendance expected the Curling Federation’s plan to host the 2023 World Mixed Doubles and Senior Curling Championships, which will be held 14 years after the 2009 Women’s Curling World Championships in Korea, and the players’ aspirations, but these expectations were pushed back.
One attending reporter bitterly said, “The former president invited reporters and enjoyed the event, then resigned, and the Curling Federation seems to be a federation where interest in the media is important.”