PUBLISHED ONMarch 01, 2023 5:12 AMByDrima ChakrabortyThe internet giveth and it taketh away.
A week ago, former national snowboarder and CrossFit athlete Woo Jin-yong was the talk of the town when he clinched victory in Netflix's game show Physical: 100. Netizens bemoaned how he was "literally invisible" with minimal screen time and deserved more appreciation as the winner.
Yesterday (Feb 28), runner-up Jung Hae-min threw a spanner in the works as he addressed claims of the finale between the two being manipulated by production staff.
In an interview with South Korean media, professional cyclist Hae-min alleged that the final match had to be stopped twice — once when Jin-yong claimed a technical problem with his equipment and again when the production team claimed the audio recording was unusable.
Though Hae-min agreed to a rematch after the second stop, he claimed he felt "the pressure" to do so, and lost due to his strength running out despite appearing to be in the lead before the restart.
Despite Hae-min urging fans not to send any hate Jin-yong's way, some have descended upon the latter's Instagram with vengeance.
"Put down the fake honour and return the trophy and honour to the real winner," one comment read on a recent Instagram post of Jin-yong with his Physical: 100 teammates.
Another comment read: "If the article [interviewing Hae-min] is true, I don't think I'd be able to use Instagram because of how embarrassed I'd be... You're shameless. Please explain."
"So Hae-min was the real winner. You should have played it fairly," an Instagram user posited. "No wonder the winning celebrations seemed really underwhelming. You didn't deserve to win."
Not everyone blamed Jin-yong for the outcome, though.
"This is a disgrace to Woo Jin-yong who came first after playing fair and reaching the finals. If the audio is wrong, the production team should be blamed," a fan wrote. "There is no fault in him doing what they ordered."
Jin-yong has yet to comment on Hae-min's claims, while Hae-min himself has never publicly posted about Physical: 100 on social media.
The internet's wrath has gone beyond the finalists themselves, and extended to contestant Ma Sun-ho, who released a YouTube video with Jin-yong last month.
He has since made the video private after receiving backlash, explaining his rationale in a follow-up video and on Instagram yesterday.
"I did a video with Woo Jin-yong a while ago, and I know that there are people who are not in a good mood after watching it because of the issue with the current Physical: 100 winner," he wrote on Instagram.
"Since there were a lot of negative comments about the cast members who cheered on the finalists, I thought it was right to keep the video private until there was an official position from the players and the production team," he wrote.
During the finale, Sun-ho and other members of the top 20 were in another room watching through monitors as the top five battled it out.
Sun-ho clarified that, as spectators, they were not "in a position to know what kind of conversations were going on in the arena" between Jin-yong, Hae-min and the production crew, though he remembered filming being stopped for an extended period.
Despite this, he added: "Knowing that Jung Hae-min had an advantage before the game stopped, all the cast members were surprised at the reversal in the situation" that resulted in Jin-yong winning.
He also claimed he received comments cursing at the cast members and even their families on his YouTube videos.
He added that he had to make a statement because: "If I don't do something like this, I won't be able to protect my family.
"And I feel sorry for the other contestants who have suffered like me because it seems like a lot of damage has been done."
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