Harbin, China, February 4, 2025: Curling became world-famous in Korea because of the so-called “Garlic Girls” – the women’s team hailing from a garlic-producing region that won the silver medal at the PyeongChang Winter Olympics in 2018.
At the Asian Winter Games on Tuesday, however, Korean garlic was overpowered by the taste of the Philippines ‘adobo’ as the Southeast Asian nation scored a big upset on the opening morning of the curling competition at Harbin Pingfang Curling Arena.
Although it wasn’t the women’s team event in which the Philippines shocked Korea, their 12-6 victory in the mixed doubles round robin Group B opener still caused a major stir in the curling world as it was the Philippines’ debut appearance in the Asian Winter Games curling competition.
‘Team Mixed Adobo’ – the traditional tangy dish of the Philippines – was comprised of Kathleen Sumbillo Dubberstein and Marc Angelo Pfister. They triumphed over Kim Kyeongae and Seong Jihoon over seven ends.
The Philippines began strongly, winning the first end 5-0 and adding two more points in the third end to lead 7-1.
The Koreans began to fight back, though, and trailed by only one point, 7-6, after six ends, only for the Philippines to pull out a second five-pointer to end the match 12-6.
“Way to go! Let’s continue our fight!” the Philippine Sports Commission posted.
The Philippine Olympic Committee pointed out that 10 of their 20 athletes in Harbin will be competing in curling – “marking an impressive progression given that the federation, Curling Winter Sports of the Philippines, was only formally established in 2023”.
The curling offers spectators in the bright, compact venue the chance to watch five games at one sitting, and the results of the other four mixed doubles games on Tuesday morning were:
Group A: Kuwait 6 Mongolia 5
Group B: Kyrgyzstan 8 Qatar 6, China 11 Kazakhstan 5, Japan 12 Thailand 2.
China navigated their opening game successfully through Han Yu and Wang Zhiyu – the AWG host country’s first taste of action at Harbin 2025.