Rhythmic gymnast Son Yeon-jae has been named one of the 11 top beauties heading to this year’s London Olympics by Pantene.

The global hair care brand under Procter & Gamble, which is officially sponsoring the 2012 Games, chose 11 of 4,800 female athletes who will be competing in London and named them as its brand ambassadors.  [Chosun Ilbo]

Son Yeon-jae is 17 years old but looks much younger in my opinion that calling her a “beauty” almost seems creepy to me.

SYDNEY — Fourteen-year-old New Zealand amateur Lydia Ko has become the youngest winner of a professional golf tour event, taking the women’s New South Wales Open by four strokes Sunday.

Ko, the world’s top amateur, broke Japanese star Ryo Ishikawa‘s mark of 15 years, 8 months, and Australian Amy Yang’s women’s record of 16 years, 192 days in the Australian Ladies Masters.

The South Korean-born New Zealander shot a 3-under 69 to finish at 14 under for the tournament, four strokes clear of Becky Morgan of Wales. Ko came close to winning the tournament last year, but missed a putt on the last hole to lose by a stroke.

Britain’s Laura Davies closed with a 71 and a 54-hole total of 216, 14 strokes behind.

“To be part of history is like a miracle,” Ko said. “It’s not something you can have by clicking your fingers.”

*****

Ko, a Grade 11 student at North Harbour near Auckland, plans to play about 30 tournaments this year, including professional events over the next two weeks at the Australian Masters at Royal Pines on the Gold Coast and the LPGA’s Australian Open at Royal Melbourne.- Associated Press

I won’t pronounce Ko another up and comer. There is a line forming of top Korean or Asian amateur players who have burned out or are in the process of burning out as professionals. Angela Park, Virada Nirapattpongporn, Sukjin Lee-Wuesthoff, to name a few. Maybe Ko won’t be like them but at this point I’d only be guessing.

Figure skater Kim Hae-jin grabs her third straight title at the KB Financial Group Korea Figure Skating Championship held at an ice rink in Gongneungdong, Seoul. On the last day of games Sunday, she scored 111.90 points in free skating. Combined with her score of 167.77 in the short program Saturday, she won the tournament for the third straight year. In men's single, Kim Jin-seo finished top with a final score of 186.44 points.

Via KBS Global.

Holding off some of the biggest names in women’s golf, unheralded Hee Young Park won the CME Group Titleholders on Sunday for her first career LPGA title.

Hee Young Park of South Korea shows off her prize after winning the CME Group Titleholders on Sunday in Orlando.

Park, with a closing 70, finished at 9-under-par 279 to beat Paula Creamer and Sandra Gal by two shots at sun-splashed Grand Cypress Resort to win the LPGA tour’s season-ending event. Another shot back were Na Yeon Choi and world No. 2 Suzann Pettersen. Michelle Wie, world No. 3 Cristie Kerr and world No. 1 Yani Tseng, trying to win for the 12th time this season, made brief runs at the championship before finishing in a tie for sixth, seven shots behind.

“I still cannot believe this,” Park said. “On the back nine I was getting like nervous and then getting tight in my body. So my caddie said, ‘Just keep going, keep trying to (play) like (it’s the) first round. You’re on the tee first time each hole, and just keep doing the same thing.’ And then I said ‘OK.’ ”

After a pep talk from Kerr on the driving range — “She told me to cheer up and that I could do it, that I could win,” Park said — she pocketed $500,000, by far the largest check of her career. She said a key moment in her round came after a bogey on the fourth hole. Telling herself that she was thinking too much about every shot up to that point, Park from then on just trusted her instincts and her club selection.

Park had won a professional tournament before, the last of her three victories on the LPGA of Korea Tour coming in 2006.

“My first win in the U.S., it feels totally different,” Park said. “Still same kind of goose bumps, but this win, I think could change my life, my future.”

Park, the overnight leader with Gal, had recorded only two top-10s in 20 events heading into the Titleholders. But she took the outright lead in the final round for the first time with a birdie on the par-3 eighth hole, her third birdie in four holes. With the two paired in the final group, Gal pulled within one shot with back-to-back birdies on the 13th and 14th holes, but a bogey at the 15th dropped her two back. Park, with a steady hand and a clutch putter, closed out her victory with 10 consecutive pars.

“She had great composure all day long,” Gal said of Park. “She’s always smiling. I’ve played with her many times, and she’s such a great competitor to play with because she’s always happy and just plays her own game.

“She didn’t make any bogeys. Her short game was great, and she made some good birdies early on, and I think that kind of gave her the momentum for the entire round.”

Added Creamer about Park: “That’s awesome playing on this course, and playing against all the big names out there. She’s a great player, and she deserved it.”

Creamer, who missed three putts inside 4 feet early in her round, made a charge with three birdies in four holes on the back nine. But just as her whole season has gone — nine top-10s, no victories — she came up just short. Park was a deserving winner today. It will have to be seen if she can follow up with more LPGA wins. The list of South Korean golfers with one or two wins is kind of long.(Birdie Kim, Jeong Jang, Gloria Park, Eun Hi Ji, Inbee Park, Jee Young Lee, Shi Hyun Ahn, and more.)

Park is only one of three South Koreans to win on tour in 2011. The others were Na Yeon Choi, and U.S. Open Champion So Yeon Ryu. Hee Kyung Seo aka ‘The Supermodel of the Fairways’ did take home the Rookie of the Year award. So much for the Koreans taking over the LPGA Tour, eh?

The LPGA hasn’t announced its 2012 schedule yet. I’m assuming it will be starting in Australia next February, but yours truly hopes for a miracle. A start up in South Florida, which was normal for the LPGA up till about 10 years ago, would be very nice not to mention convenient for me.

“Blade Runner” Oscar Pistorius failed to make the final of the men’s 400 m in Daegu on Monday but will still be remembered for taking on able-bodied athletes at the Athletics World Championships on his two carbon-fiber prostheses.

The South African sprinter, who had both his legs amputated below the knees when he was 11 months old due to a crippling congenital disease, was hoping to make another piece of history at Daegu Stadium, but advancing to Tuesday’s final was always a long shot at best.

Just before the semifinal, Pistorius was checking the starting blocks in lane seven and warming up by running stretches of 40 to 50 meters. After the starting gun sounded he stayed in the hunt for the first 200 m before dropping back to finish last of the group in a time of 46.19 seconds, over one second behind his personal best.

The crowd, clearly moved by his story, showed their admiration with a huge round of applause as he bowed out of the competition. Pistorius’ story of overcoming his innate disability, and beating the IAAF by persuading the Court of Arbitration for Sport to overturn its ban on him running against able-bodied athletes, has won him many fans.  [Chosun Ilbo]

Three-time Olympic short track champion Ahn Hyun-soo once said his goal was to make a triumphant comeback at the 2014 Winter Olympics.

“I want to stand at the top of the victory stand at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics,” he said at the national winter sports championships in February this year. He still wants to win gold as a national team member again, but not as a Korean competitor.

○ Healing broken wings

Ahn wrote Wednesday on his page in Cyworld, a Korean social networking site, that he was seeking Russian citizenship. This came a day after the Russian Skating Union asked Moscow to grant him Russian citizenship and make him eligible to compete for Russia at the 2014 Winter Olympics.  [Donga Ilbo]

I wonder how long it will be before he regrets this decision?

Hines Ward(notes), star wide receiver for the Pittsburgh Steelers and widely regarded as one of the NFL’s finest citizens, spent part of his Saturday morning in handcuffs after being arrested in Georgia for driving under the influence.

Not a lot of details are available just yet, but Ward was booked into the jail at 3:41 a.m. and then released on $1,000 bond.

Owing to his often violent, physical style of play, Ward is a polarizing figure on the field. Off the field, though, Ward was beyond reproach. He’d done a lot of work to benefit mixed-race children in South Korea, where he was born. President Obama even appointed him to the President’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders.  [Yahoo Sports]

I guess Ben Roethlisberger was unavailable for comment.

Oh by the way, Hines Ward says he wasn’t driving drunk and when the facts come out he will be exonerated.

The passion of the Korean people, the unyielding power to prevail and the firm support of the government made it possible for Pyeongchang to move the hearts of many hard-to-please IOC members this week in South Africa as Korea won the bid to host the 2018 Winter Olympics.

The article than goes on to list these as the key factors:

• Presidential Support
• Strategies
• Clear Message
• Prowess In Vancouver Olympics

No word if any white envelopes came into play. It just wouldn’t be the Winter Olympics without them.

Joking aside, congratulations to Pyeongchang for winning the right to host the games.  They no doubt worked very hard over the past decade+ to host these games.  I have no doubt that top facilities will be constructed and the games will be run smoothly.  I think it will be interesting to see in the coming years if the North Koreans will try to use threats of making provocations before and during the Winter Olympics as way to extract hush money out of South Korea?

One day ahead of the announcement of the host, PyeongChang is trying to attract IOC votes by emphasizing the city as the new frontier of Winter Sports in Asia.

“The bid to host the 2018 Olympic Winter Games in PyeongChang is to expand the Olympic movement to attract new spectators,” said Cho Yang-ho, chairman of the bid committee in the first official press conference. “This is what we mean by New Horizons. We do not mean new facilities, but giving a new dream to the next generation,” Cho said.  (………………)

Park Yong-sung, the chairman of the Korean Olympic Committee (KOC), said that he never thought about not winning the right to host the games.

Korea brought notable figures including President Lee Myung-bak, reigning Olympic figure skating champion Kim Yu-na and Koreanborn U.S. medalist Toby Dawson to bolster its bid to win the games on its third-attempt bid.  [Korea Times]

Read the rest at the link, but there is a closed room vote coming up that will determine who will host the games.

North Korea’s coach blamed his side’s 2-0 loss to the United States on his players getting struck by lightning in the build up to the Women’s World Cup.

Kwang Min Kim claimed that some of them were hospitalised with electrocution after a training match on 8 June.  [............]

“When we stayed in Pyongyang during training our players were hit by lightning, and more than five of them were hospitalised,” said coach Kim, without naming the affected players specifically.

“Some stayed in hospital and then came to Germany later than the rest of us. The goalkeeper and the four defenders were most affected, and some midfielders as well. The physicians said the players were not capable of participating in the tournament.

“But World Cup football is the most important and significant event for a footballer, so they don’t want to think about anything but football.

“The fact that they played could be called abnormal, the result of very strong will.”  [BBC]

I could actually see this happening though because any other soccer team would have brought their players indoors if an electrical storm was occurring but I can definitely see the North Koreans keeping their players out in the rain and lightning practicing to show that it wasn’t from a lack of effort that they lost the World Cup.