After acquiring Korean citizenship in 2011, he added the Taegeuk mark and contributed to the final round of the Tokyo Olympics.
Kim Han-byul (35), the ‘Byeolbron’ of Samsung Life Insurance, Yongin, a women’s professional basketball team, won the championship match for the first time in 12 years after advancing to Korea and enjoyed the joy of being the best player (MVP).
Kim Han-byul recorded 22 points and 7 rebounds in the 5th leg of the 2020-2021 Women’s Professional Basketball Championship (3 wins from 5 matches) held at the Yongin Gymnasium in Gyeonggi Province on the 15th.
Kim Han-byul, who scored an average of 20.8 points in the five championship matches, took on KB’s defense of Park Ji-soo, making a big success in airborne, and was selected as the MVP by receiving 66 out of 85 votes from the reporters’ voting.
Kim Han-byul, who entered the Korean stage in 2009, is a mixed race player with an American father.
In the early stages of advancing to the Korean stage, he was active under the English name Kimberly Robertson and gained Korean nationality in 2011.
In particular, he played an active role as a national team in the qualifying round of the Tokyo Olympics held in Serbia in February last year, and put Korean women’s basketball on the Olympic final 12 years after the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Since Samsung Life won the 2006 summer league championship, only seven runners-ups have been held for 15 years without winning the championship, so Kim Han-byul also did not have a championship in Korea, but finally obtained this year’s championship cup and MVP title at the same time.
In an interview after the game, Kim Han-byul said, “It doesn’t feel like reality,” and “I’m proud of my fellow players who had a hard time together.”
He said, “In fact, the team gave me more, and the coaching staff and fellow players were faithful to their role and helped me, so I was able to get an MVP.”
Kim Han-byul, who played all 40 minutes of the 3rd game and 45 minutes of the 4th game, said, “Today is the last game, so I was able to play more.” Explained the secret of physical fitness.
He often lost his composure while protesting the usual judgment, saying, “As an experienced player, I exercised self-control with the thought of not burdening my team members,” he laughed. “But the referees will think I was dissatisfied.” Showed.
Kim Han-byul, who is 178 cm tall, struggled to block Park Ji-soo, who is nearly 20 cm taller than herself, throughout this series.
He confessed, “It’s not fun to stop Park Ji-soo.”
However, Kim Han-byul did not forget the virtues, saying, “Park Ji-soo is a really great player and his future will be bright.”
“The most aggressive player on our team is Kim Han-byul,” said Samsung Life Coach Lim Geun-bae. “Our team players are good, but we need to imitate that aspect of Kim Han-byul,” explained the positive effect Kim Han-byul has on the team.
Kim Han-byul expressed his desire to rest after a difficult season, saying, “I have a lot of thoughts because my mother couldn’t come because of the novel coronavirus infection (Corona 19).”
/yunhap news