Women's curling team wrap up Asiad with Korea's 16th gold medal

South Korea edged out China in the Harbin Asian Winter Games women's curling event Friday, clinching its 16th gold medal in what has been one of the country's most successful runs in the event.

Korea's women's curling team, captained by Gim Eun-ji, defeated the home nation 7-2 at the Harbin Pingfang District Curling Arena in China on Friday. They completed a sweep of the event, going undefeated throughout the knock-out tournament.

The last time that Korea won gold for an Asian Games curling event was in 2007.

Hopes ran high for Korea to win both the men's and women's curling events, but the men's team fell to the Philippines in the gold-medal match on Thursday. The Philippines pulled away with a 5-3 win, handing Korea their first defeat in the competition.

The Korean men's hockey team, who dropped the semifinals match against Japan on Thursday, took home bronze after winning against China on Friday. The women's team, however, fell to Kazakhstan 3-0 in the final match of the round-robin format to finish fourth.

Korea surpasses initial goal to finish second overall

The women's curling team's gold marked South Korea's 16th gold medal and 44th medal overall in this year's Asian Winter Games, tying the country's record of 16 gold medals won at the 2017 Asian Winter Games. Koreans finished in second place behind China, and comfortably ahead of Japan, in third place with nine gold medals.

Korea's performance far surpassed the initial goal of 11 gold medals, even taking some home for events that Korea had never won medals for before.

Figure Skater Cha Jun-hwan took a surprise win Thursday in his first Asian Winter Games appearance. Crowned champion of the men's singles event, he became the first Korean male figure skater to win a medal at the Asian Games. Earlier in the day, his teammate Kim Chae-yeon upset three-time world champion Kaori Sakamoto in the figure skating women's singles event for her first Asian Game gold medal.

It was the first time Korea won both the men's and women's singles figure skating events at the Asian Winter Games.

Ekaterina Avvakumova, a naturalized Korean who was born in Russia, won the country's first-ever biathlon gold in the women's 7.5 kilometer run on Tuesday. She won her second medal of the event when her team won silver for the women's 4 by 6 kilometer relay on Thursday.

Another surprise win of the Asian Games belonged to snowboarder Kim Geon-hui, who won a gold medal for the men's halfpipe event after the finals scheduled for Thursday were cancelled due to blustery weather conditions at the venue. He was awarded the win based his qualification score of 78.00 points.

Kim's compatriot Lee Chae-un, who lost out on a chance to compete for a gold at his primary event, won his first career Asiad win as well with a gold medal in the men's snowboard slopestyle event.