Incheon, South Korea: Perhaps in the UAE one is not too used to staying without electricity, even for a few minutes. But this is almost an everyday phenomenon in developing nations where the words ‘outage’ and ‘power cut’ are part of daily living.
Incheon, the hosts of the 17th edition of the Asian Games, pretty much landed in the same boat on the opening day of competition on Saturday, when a preliminary round badminton match had to be suspended for several minutes after the electricity went out.
At least three matches in the women’s competition were being held when power at the Gyeyang Gymnasium was affected at around 9.45am. Most of the lights went off and screens blacked out. The matches involved were Taiwan versus Hong Kong, India and Macau China and Maldives against Indonesia — they had to be suspended and officials at the venue were unable to explain the reason for the outage.
Free-scoring North Korea
Much is being made of North Korea’s participation at these Asian Games.
The Asiad’s media officer sends out a daily notice regarding the movement and participation of the North, with particular emphasis on the security arrangements for their neighbours.
And, when the North Korean women’s football team beat Hong Kong China 5-0 to ease into the quarter-finals of the competition, there was a substantial amount of space reserved by the South Korean media for its coverage.
North Korea had opened the tournament with an identical win over Vietnam last week. And, despite Vietnam being yet to play Hong Kong in the final group fixture, North Korea are through to the knockout stages of the 16-team competition. They won the silver medal at the 2010 Guangzhou Asiad.
Chelsea striker boost
High-scoring striker Ji So-yun will not be available to serve the hosts should they reach the women’s football final on October 1.
Ji, who plays professionally for current English league leaders Chelsea Ladies, was released by her club only for the knockout stages of the tournament despite not obliged to do so as the Asian Games is not part of the official Fifa calendar.
At first it was assumed that Ji would be playing for South Korea until the final on October 1, but the star striker, who has scored 30 goals in 62 international matches for her country, has to be present for Chelsea’s next match against Everton Ladies in the first week of October.
The hosts have already advanced to the quarter-finals with two wins while scoring 15 goals and, luckily for them, Yoo Young-a has scored five times in the Games.
