Wardrobe malfunction nearly derails ice dance duo from South Korea
GANGNEUNG, South Korea – You ever have that dream where you are standing in front of a group and you are totally naked?
Well, that’s what Yura Min was frighteningly close to experiencing for real. On worldwide television. In her Olympic debut.
Min experienced a scary wardrobe malfunction on Sunday while competing in ice dancing in the figure skating team event for South Korea.
“Five seconds into the routine, my hook came undone,” said Min, who trains in Novi, Mich.
Not just any hook.
It was the hook in the back of her costume that basically holds the whole thing together.
“I was like, ‘ Oh, no!’ ” she said. “If that comes undone, the whole thing could just pop off. I was terrified the entire program.”
But what should she do? Stop and fix it?
“I didn’t stop,” she said. “I went from the beginning to the end. I didn’t stop because you get a deduction if you stop in the middle of a program. In my head, I was thinking, ‘Is it better to stop and fix it and get the deduction or keep going?’ ”
She ad-libbed the entire routine, forcing herself to keep her arms back, trying to keep her costume to stay up. If she would have followed her routine precisely and brought her arms together at different times, her top would have slipped down.
“This is my first Olympics, our first program, and if my top were to come down? That would have been a disaster,” she said. “I was very nervous that the entire thing was going to come off.”
She gutted her way through the program with her partner, Alexander Gamelin, keeping everything, well, in place.
“The fans kept cheering,” she said. “Obviously, this is my first Olympics. I don’t want to let loose. I was terrified. I tried my best to keep it together.”
During her twizzle routine, her costume dropped dangerously low.
“Anytime she brought her shoulders in, it came down,” Gamelin said. “I only noticed it halfway through. During our twizzle, it came off her shoulder, all of the way. She had to stop and pull it back up, and that cost us a bunch of points. It wasn’t because we were skating poorly.”
Min and Gamelin received 51.97 points and placed ninth out of 10 teams.
“Obviously, there were some things she couldn’t do because her costume came undone,” Gamelin said. “She had to fix it a couple of times. I think the skating was good.”
After finishing their routine, a large group of Korean journalists were waiting to talk to Min and Gamelin because they are such an interesting story. Both of Min’s parents emigrated from South Korea before she was born in Torrance, Calif. And Gamelin became a naturalized South Korean citizen in July, making him eligible to compete in the Olympics.
In retrospect, Min and Gamelin are glad the costume malfunction happened in the team event. They now will turn their focus to the individual competition, which begins Feb. 19.
“If this was our only shot, I’d be devastated,” Min said.
As far as that individual competition, Min plans to wear the same costume. But they won’t take any chances. They won’t just fix the hook. They plan to sew that costume together.