17 March 2025
Floor Curling milestone: Korea hosts its first National Championship
In an exciting innovation, another competition took place at the Uijeongbu Indoor Ice Rink during the first weekend of the LGT World Women’s Championship.
At the main entrance of the venue, the Korea Curling Federation set up a two-sheet Floor Curling facility to host the first-ever officially sanctioned Korean Floor Curling Championship. As fans gathered for the LGT Opening Ceremony, many were drawn to this new discipline, eager to check out the action.
Overseeing the event were Kim Hoon, Director of the Korea Curling Federation, who managed the project, and Chad McMullan, President of Rock Solid Productions, World Curling’s partners and global leaders in iceless curling.
The competition attracted 40 athletes from nine different organizations across the country. The medallists came from the local International Christian School and St. Paul Preparatory School.
Speaking about the event’s turnout, Kim said, “40 competitors might look small, but we think it’s a good start.” Looking ahead, he added, “we’ll be doing more now to promote Floor Curling to schools and companies, and will be working on expanding the national championship, involving exchange programmes for tourists and students.”
McMullan provided insight into the development of Floor Curling in Korea, “this is the first sanctioned Floor Curling event. They’re playing six-end games here, with teams of four. However, we’ve designed Floor Curling so that you can have singles, doubles, triples or fours. Fours use more stones – eight stones per team, the other disciplines use four stones. It’s mainly aimed at doubles but when you’ve got the participation, you can bump it up to fours.”
He continued, “We made an agreement last year with Korean Curling to promote all this. We’re still trying to formalise everything in Korea, for example make an official schools programme – lots of schools have Floor Curling but they don’t have official events.”
Discussing the broader impact, McMullan noted, “countries that don’t know on ice curling as much are the ones that gravitate towards this. It’s really booming in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and India. India has held three Floor Curling championships. The last one was sanctioned by us and they had over 400 athletes show up – some people hadn’t played before but they showed up and just wanted to play. They don’t have ice rinks in India, but if we can get thousands of people involved, some official or entrepreneur is going to say ‘we need ice.’”
Looking to the future, McMullan speculated, “if we ever launch a world championship in this, then everyone is going to have to pay attention. There’s already talk of the different Asian countries getting together and playing regional events.”
The event in Uijeongbu received strong endorsements from key officials. Yu In-Chon, South Korea’s Minister for Culture, Sports, and Tourism, attended the LGT Women’s Championship opening and took time to visit the Floor Curling site, even trying his hand at throwing a couple of stones. Also present were Ryu Seung-min, President of Korea’s Olympic Committee, Uijeongbu Mayor Kim Dong-Geun, and Korea Curling President Han Sang-Ho.
With approximately 20% of World Curling’s Member Associations lacking regular access to curling ice, Floor Curling has the potential to introduce new players to the sport and contribute to its overall growth and success.
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