Right after the competition, they expressed their willingness to compete at the next Winter Olympics as the only ice dance team representing South Korea.

As a first step, they have started to raise funds to cover the costs of training and international competitions, estimated to be about $200,000 a year. The team has no big corporate sponsors to give them full financial support for their athletic activities.

"Skating successfully to qualify for 2018 PyeongChang, and now, skating forward to the 2022 Beijing, Winter Olympics takes absolute dedication," the Min Gamelin Korea Athlete Fund states. "Your giving helps to defray our training and competition expenses."

The online donation page was launched in December 2016, and around $60,000 has been raised so far.

Min said that she has been hoping to expand the horizon of ice dance in South Korea, where ladies' singles figure skating enjoys huge popularity thanks to Kim Yu-na.

"There are no ice dance skaters in South Korea other than us. We've been the only ice dance team representing Korea in international competitions for years," she said after the free skate on Tuesday. "We're running for the Beijing Olympics. Alex and I have been talking about our plans to teach ice dance figure skaters in Korea after retirement." (Yonhap)