Anyone playing near the Daegu/Gimcheon area?

Discussion in 'Japan / Korea' started by lilmizsara, Jul 22, 2012.

  1. lilmizsara

    lilmizsara Regular Member

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    Are there any places to train here for recreational players? I know there's a club for some of the national players but im not sure about the recreational ones.

    Does anyone know? I'd be travelling there in a few months time and am planning to play whilst I'm there.

    Also, how is it like living there? Any advice is appreciated! :D thanks so much!
     
  2. event

    event Regular Member

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    The place where the Asian Junior athletes warmed up, directly adjacent to the Gimcheon Indoor Gymnasium, is normally a public facility, I believe. Gimcheon has one of only 3 pro teams in Korea that has men and women together and I'm sure they train in that gym; however, Suwon has nearly the same situation and recreational players play at its 12-court gym even when the pros are training. I think the Gimcheon gym is 16 courts, so unless all their school teams train there, too, I would expect it doubles as a public facility.

    It's shown on this map (the silver rectangle right next to the circle marked E). To get there, take the #15 bus from Gimcheon Station, get off across from the GS Caltex gas station shown on the map, and walk between the rice fields and vineyards to the gym, which is clearly visible from the bus stop. It's called 김천실내배드민턴경기장 (Gimcheon Indoor Badminton Gym) and is shown in photos at this link.

    Oddly, though, the club listing for Gimcheon doesn't mention any recreational clubs that play there so if you go there and get kicked out for not being an elite athlete, you'd need to try one of the three on the list. #1 and #3 both play at Gimcheon Middle School, while #2 plays at Gimcheon Girls' High School, all in the evenings.
     
  3. event

    event Regular Member

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    As for Daegu, that's 75km away in a city of 3 million people with a list of 69 clubs. I've also never been to any of them so you'd have to provide a neighbourhood first.
     
  4. lilmizsara

    lilmizsara Regular Member

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    hey event, thanks so much for the informative reply! :) all these will come in really handy when I travel there...hmm. i just checked out my accomodation, and it seems to be located much nearer to Gimcheon than to Daegu, so i'd be bypassing daegu I guess. didn't know they had so many clubs there!

    btw, is this the gimcheon indoor gymnasium the same place where the "Gimcheon City Hall" club players train? and i believe some of them are from the korean national team?
     
  5. event

    event Regular Member

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    That's right. Shin Baek Cheol, Ko Sung Hyun, Shon Wan Ho, - and, when he returns from the military, Kwon Yi Goo - all play for Gimcheon. The women's team is not as strong. Yoon Yeo Sook, Sun In Jang, and Ko Hyun Jung all used to be on the national team, while their star player is now Jang Ye Na, the double gold-medallist at the Korea GP Gold.
     
  6. event

    event Regular Member

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    lilmizsara, are you in Daegu yet? There is a domestic tournament coming up and all the top players will be there, even the recently suspended and retired ones.
     
  7. lilmizsara

    lilmizsara Regular Member

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    Hi Event!

    Thanks SO MUCH for the replies :) i'm so sorry I couldn't get back here often.

    hmm.. I'm still planning my schedule, might be there in October but I don't think I would be in time for the tournament though :(

    Is the annual National Sports Festival? or is this a different one? :)
     
  8. lilmizsara

    lilmizsara Regular Member

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    btw, this might be a bit off-topic with concerns to badminton. But is Gimcheon a nice area for long term accomodation? I've been reading that it's abit boring there, but in other sites, especially the korean ones it seems like an alright place to be in
     
  9. event

    event Regular Member

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    Yes, The NSF from Oct 6-11th is the one. I don't know anything about Gimcheon or Daegu as places to live. I've only ever been there for sports competitions.
     
  10. lilmizsara

    lilmizsara Regular Member

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    ^ oh you play badminton at a pro level too? :)

    Anyway, i was abit confused with the NSF dates, there. cause it was stated on some places that it was from 11-17Oct and that definitely clashes with the Denmark Open. It's a few days earlier from the Korean website, so thats great.
     
  11. lilmizsara

    lilmizsara Regular Member

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    There's another question I'd like to ask.

    A host of ours who says they used to play in that area mentioned a player's village somewhere, and that a bigger badminton hall is situated nearer that area. I've not come across any players' village there neither have I seen a bigger badminton hall on the maps i've come across.

    Is there such a players village in Gimcheon or thats completely wrong infor? am confused now
     
  12. event

    event Regular Member

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    Hmm. There apparently were plans to build an athletes' village for the national sports festival in 2006 but they were scrapped. Apparently, the city was trying to use the public rental housing in Deokkok-dong for that purpose but I don't see any evidence of a gym near there. Is it possible that the mention was made in the context of the Gimcheon City Hall players? If so, it might have come up that the most famous Gimcheon players live and train practically full-time with the national team in the athletes' village in Seoul, which is known as 태릉선수촌. If it was definitely Gimcheon, then it must have been the sports complex that is home to the badminton gym. The complex is is called 'Gimcheon Sports Town' and is home to three soccer fields, an indoor pool, an indoor arena with the attached badminton gym, an inline skating track, 20 outdoor tennis courts, and what looks like an indoor tennis facility. I don't see any accomodation on the site, though.
     
  13. lilmizsara

    lilmizsara Regular Member

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    Hmm, Ic. Apparently she mentioned this place: '동안선수촌', said it was near Gimcheon and that it had an attached larger indoor badminton gym. I've been looking at maps and don't see it. Does such a place even exist there? =/

    That;s interesting, so how does it work for the national players...do they come down to play tournaments in their clubs from time to time or..? It seems like quite a hassle, especially if one's club is so far away from the Tae-reung Sports Village!
     
  14. event

    event Regular Member

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    There is a place in Gimcheon called 동안리. It is 32km from the train station and doesn't appear to have anything like that.

    Taeneung is home to national team players. 'time to time' means, these days, about 3 or 4 times a year. Often, in February, the national team players will return to join their colleagues in training for a few weeks before the spring tournament. Often, there will be no combined training before the summer tournament because you have the TUC/Sudirman, and often the Thai/Singapore/INA Opens at the same time. The pro teams also mean a player has a home to go to if they get cut from the national team and have to leave Taeneung. There are also other promotional events they participate in.

    One of the more surprising things was that Shin Baek Cheol was running scoreboards during the Asian Juniors, along with the other Gimcheon players. He may have been temporarily off the national team, though.
     
  15. lilmizsara

    lilmizsara Regular Member

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    ok. that must def be wrong information from my host then. really strange. :confused: but thanks for the heads up!

    anyway, the national team players only return to their teams 3-4 times a year? haha, i didnt know that. thought it was slightly more. is it very hard to stay on the national team? cause i read on occasion about people getting cut here and there.

    interesting that the teams get to participate in promotional events too. there's nothing of that sort here in my country though badminton is one of more 'famed' sports.=(

    woah, he was running the scoreboards at the 2012 Asian Juniors earlier this year? Hmm. that's surprising. I personally like his game and wished he got more opportunities to represent his country, am sure he'd do a good job. hoping he'd get those opportunities with the partnership reshuffling going on now.
     
  16. lilmizsara

    lilmizsara Regular Member

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    Hi Event,

    Just have a small question. I'd be in Korea come January and would like to buy the tickets for Korea Open 2013. However, I don't see any sales of it on any English-website. And I used to read that it was hard for international fans to get tickets to this tournament for some reason.

    Do you know if the sales for the tickets have already started? And are there any websites I can buy them from where I am? I don't mind Korean-language websites as I understand the language. someone recommended the G-market website to me, but I don't know if it's the wrong link as I don't see any sales of tickets there.


    If you have some advice on this, it would be really appreciated! Thanks alot in advance! :D
     
  17. event

    event Regular Member

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    Since 2011, they have been selling tickets via the auction.co.kr website. Last year, they also offered them on gmarket but without the direct link, it was tricky to find them from the English language version. The correct link will be posted on Badzine once it becomes available; however, don't expect them anytime soon. The tournament website still isn't even online (even the GPG site only went up on Friday and there is still not one in English) and tickets went on sale only 12 days before qualifying day in 2012 and 10 days before in 2011.
     
  18. lilmizsara

    lilmizsara Regular Member

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    hmm, the gmarket web was pretty chaotic, couldn't really navigate the korean one easily either. Haha, I think it's been like that for a few tournaments and I always wondered why it isn't sold more quickly. Even the Msian Open 2013 have already started selling their tickets. Is there a good chance that I am able to buy a season pass or something (for the whole week) when I reach Korea instead of online?
     
  19. event

    event Regular Member

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    Hard to say. In 2011, the week-long passes were all sold out before the tournament started but the box office didn't open until Wednesday so even on qualifying day, it wasn't possible to buy tickets in person. Your best bet is likely to use GMarket to buy online or show up and buy daily tickets at the box office in person. That's assuming Gmarket is used again this year.

    As for why they don't start selling them earlier, who knows? It is normal, though. Last year, too, the All England and Malaysia Open had their tickets on sale long before the Korea Open did.
     
  20. EvoCopter

    EvoCopter Regular Member

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    Hi event/lilmizsara,

    Event, I PM you before regarding my group of friends planning to play in Korea. They are looking at Aug 2013 - is this a good time? Is there a club of players - high intermediate/advance player you know or reccommend please? lilmizsara - appreciate it if you could let me know the outcome of your game/training during your trip. By the way, where do you play regualrly in S'pore? perhaps we can meet up and discuss more?


    Thanks event/lilmizsara
     

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