Asian Games 2023: South Korean badminton star Kim Ga-eun denies mocking China’s He Bingjiao for crying
- The 25-year-old is ‘heartbroken it has become a topic’ as she explains incident after beating He to seal gold in team final
- But Chinese netizens do not buy ‘bully’ Kim’s explanation, and round on her again for supposedly trying to ‘deceive’ people
South Korean badminton player Kim Ga-eun has denied imitating and mocking her tearful Chinese opponent He Bingjiao, after a post-match incident went viral at the Asian Games in Hangzhou.
The hosts were stunned 3-0 by South Korea in the women’s team badminton final last Sunday, with the whitewash played out in front of a partisan crowd on China’s National Day.
World No 1 An Se-young dominated Olympic champion and world No 3 Chen Yufei in the first match of the tie, before the world No 2 pairing of Lee So-hee and Baek Ha-na beat China’s top-ranked Chen Qingchen and Jia Yifan in straight games to put South Korea on the cusp of victory.
Kim then secured the gold medal with a 22–20, 21–17 win over He, who broke down in tears as the South Korean team ran on court to celebrate at the Binjiang Gymnasium.
World No 18 Kim was later rounded on by netizens, after footage showed her raising her head and briefly pretending to cry in an exchange with her coach on the sidelines as they celebrated, which was deemed disrespectful by Chinese fans.
The 25-year-old Kim was asked about the incident by Korean media on Thursday after her 2-1 defeat by Chen Yufei in the women’s singles quarterfinals.
“It would be nice if this question had been asked earlier, ‘Why did you do this action?’ It’s not like this [how the incident has been portrayed],” she said.
“Before our game started, if I had won my match, then the final was over. So we made an agreement – ‘Don’t cry if we win’.
“If you feel like crying, just raise your head and hold it back. I will celebrate like this. This is also our agreement before the game.
“In the end, we won the game. In fact, at that time, our coach was really crying when she saw that I won the game, so [we] asked her why she was crying and advised her not to cry, so we came up with this action.”
Kim insisted the South Korean players were immersed in their own celebrations, and had no idea that He was crying at the same time.
“But through watching the broadcast footage, we also felt it may become a topic, and the edited video may eventually lead to such a result, and I feel very sorry,” Kim added.
“What I am most worried about is that He Bingjiao watched such a situation, and that it will cause a misunderstanding.”
The reporter also directly asked Kim if her actions were intentional.
“No, absolutely not,” she said. “He Bingjiao is one of my favourite players. To me, this is why it makes me regretful and heartbroken that it has become a topic.”
Chinese badminton fans did not seem to be buying Kim’s explanation, however, and took to social media to vent their anger.
“Do you think that we believe it?” one user wrote on Weibo, while other netizens called Kim a “bully” and “disgusting”.
Another fan claimed the South Korean coach “almost pointed a finger at He Bingjiao” before appearing to cry. “Of course you will not admit his despicable behaviour!” they said.
“Can you believe what you said?” another user asked on the highly popular platform, which is similar to X – formerly known as Twitter.
“We can still tell the difference between real crying and fake crying, real celebration and fake celebration. Eyes and micro-expressions cannot deceive people,” read a comment.
