South Korea’s EunJung Kim wins Canad Inns Women’s Classic curling championship

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This article was published 25/10/2015 (3645 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The upset is complete.

EunJung Kim of South Korea is the Canad Inns Women’s Classic champion after taking out Olympic gold medalist Jennifer Jones on Sunday night.

Kim came from 3-0 down after two ends, putting up a three of her own on the scoreboard in the fourth end and then four more in the sixth for the 7-6 win in the $60,000 event at the Portage Curling Club in Portage la Prairie.

Jones looked in command after the second, but missed a key tap in the fourth and jammed in the sixth end, setting up Kim for the end that proved to be the fatal blow for Jones.

Both Kim and Jones were 6-1 through round robin play.

For her efforts, Kim and her team take home $15,000. The win is their second on the World Curling Tour in 2015.

Jones, meanwhile, is off to the Masters of Curling event in Truro, Nova Scotia next week.

Jones had survived a seventh end scare from Tracy Fleury to make the final with a 6-5 win over the Northern Ontario curler.

The Olympic gold medalist went up 5-2 through six ends and looked to be in cruise control. But Fleury bounced back in a big way, tying the game after lying three on her last rock of the seventh end.

“I’m not sure what happened to my rock, to be honest, I’m still baffled by it,” said Jones, who redeemed herself with a draw to the button in the eighth for the win. “We had a perfect eighth end and I couldn’t have asked for a better shot on my last one.”

Jones, who has won the event three times in the past – 2005, 2013 and 2014 – will face South Korea’s EunJung Kim, whose excellent play all weekend has turned many heads.

Kim held a 5-1 lead into the sixth end in her match against 2012 champ Michelle Englot, who struggled early on, but found her touch in the sixth, putting two up on the board and then stealing one more in the seventh to put her within one at 5-4.

But Kim, as she has done all week, stayed calm and claimed one with the hammer in the eighth to book her trip to the 6 p.m. final.

“They skip (Englot) is a very good player,” Kim said through a translator. “But we got three in fifth end and it was a little more comfortable for us. It was a great game.”

scott.billeck@freepress.mb.ca