"Invisible discrimination, it was unfortunate."" Female Danggu = Kim Ga-young, heavy responsibility "If someone has to do it, I will" [Jeju Field Interview]

*This content was translated by AI.

When I think of billiard rooms, there were many negative perceptions. The idea was that it was a place where people who were so bad that the smoke of cigarettes vibrated and felt scary lived. The stereotype that sports require running and sweating also hindered billiards from being recognized as a sport. So Kim Ga-young (43, Hana Card) tried to do better.

Kim Ga-young beat Han Ji-eun by a set score of 4-1 (9-11, 11-5, 11-7, 11-1, 11-2) in the final of the "Hana Card Hana Capital LPBA World Championship" in the 2025-2026 season at Halla Gymnasium in Jeju-si, Jeju-do on the 15th.

It boasted the overwhelming aspect of an overwhelming empress with no one to follow. He lifted the trophy for the 18th time and won three consecutive king games, bringing the accumulated prize money to 911.3 million won. Despite the wide gap between the men's team (PBA) and the prize money, Kim Ga-young jumped to fourth place in the men's and women's combined prize money with her overwhelming career.

Kim Ga-young, who is called more of an effort than anyone else, felt a bit disappointed compared to the previous season, which was flawless. Before the game, I felt that I had a bad feeling, but Kim Ga-young shone more on the final stage.

Kim Ga-young, who started after giving up the first set but immediately won the second set and turned the game to square one, slowly got the hang of it, showing off her perfect performance with Abidge 2.200 in the fourth set and 2.750 in the fifth set to secure the championship.

It ended the season so perfectly. Moreover, in January, he won the grand prize at the 37th Yoongok Kim Management Women's Sports Awards. The fact that the late vice chairman of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Kim Un-yong, won the grand prize in all events and the first women's sports event in billiards, which was established in 1989 for the successful hosting of the 1988 Seoul Olympics and the development of women's sports in Korea.

Kim Ga-young, who started as a pocketball player and played as the top player, including a three-time world championship champion, changed her sport to three cushions with the launch of the PBA Tour in 2019, but she has already stood as the strongest player with no opponents.

Kim Ga-young, who met with reporters after winning the championship, looked back on this season and looked back on the meaning of winning the Yoongok Award. He said, "It's the award I wanted to receive the most. He started playing billiards in 1997, and this year marks his 30th anniversary. "How many changes have there been in the environment?" he said. "In Korea, female billiard players have not been recognized. I'm also an athlete, but I felt sorry for the invisible discrimination I received. I was also disappointed," he confessed.

So Kim Ga-young ground more. "I thought that showing a good performance as a player would change my view of billiards, whether it's the public or the sports side, and what I can do is do my best as a player and show it with my performance," he said. "As they gathered at one point and received the Song of the Year award, I thought billiards was just the beginning for a sport. It was meaningful to think that the juniors could be treated as sportsmen," he said.

As a professional player, as well as skills, mental, interviews, and effort, he is a player who is missing everything. Even the competitors feel the wall.

He knows better than anyone else that he is a representative of the billiard world, so he thinks that the only way is to do his best. And they are accepting this as fate. Kim Ga-young laughed, saying, "I'm working hard with the mindset that if someone has to do it, I'll try it."

Is it because of such pressure on yourself. It is also true that you tend to push yourself too much. Asked how he would prepare for next season, Kim Ga-young said, "I have a negative side. I try to be positive, but I don't. I like it, and I envy someone like that, he said. "There are always negative parts, but rather than fixing them, I want to change them to other energy so that they can work positively on me."

However, it is also true that the current Kim Ga-young was able to be completed because of such constant whipping and reflection on herself.

He has made so many achievements that it is hard to find anything more to achieve. Regarding the prize money exceeding 1 billion won, Kim Ga-young said, "I don't care at all," but when asked about her future goals, she said, "I want to win 20 games." The constant sense of improvement keeps Kim Ga-young running. It is this attitude that makes Kim Ga-young shine more than just her ability. This is the first part that juniors who dream of "the second Kim Ga-young" should benchmark.

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*This content was translated by AI.