[Asian Games] Gold! Gold! Gold!... South Korea Continues Gold Streak in Gymnastics, Swimming, Fencing, and Gaming

Korea Ranks 2nd Overall with 24 Gold, 23 Silver, and 39 Bronze Medals

The South Korean national team continued their golden run on the first day of the Chuseok holiday at the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games.

Kim Hansol is performing in the men's artistic gymnastics floor final at the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games held on the 28th at the Huanglong Sports Center Gymnasium in Hangzhou, China.
[Image source=Yonhap News]

Veteran male gymnast Kim Hansol (Seoul City Hall) clinched the gold medal in the men's floor exercise final of artistic gymnastics held on the 28th at the Huanglong Sports Center Gymnasium in Hangzhou, China, with a score of 14.900.

Jiang Boheng and Lin Xiaopan (both from China), who both scored 14.333, took the silver and bronze medals respectively.

Kim Hansol won this event for the second consecutive time at the Asian Games, following the 2018 Jakarta-Palembang Games. In Korean gymnastics history, winning the Asian Games event twice in a row is the third occurrence after Yeo Hongcheol in the 1998 Bangkok Games and Kim Sumeom in the 2010 Guangzhou Games.

The order of performance plays a crucial role in gymnastics competitions. Due to the nature of judging by referees, the first performer tends to receive stricter scores, while those performing later often get slightly more generous marks. Despite the disadvantage of being the first to perform among the competitors, Kim Hansol proved his skill by achieving back-to-back championships.

Kim Hansol, who earned the first gold medal for the Korean team in gymnastics at this tournament, said, "Coach Kim Dae-eun and I had a strategy to decisively overpower the competitors from the very first routine, and it worked well," adding, "In domestic competitions, the first performer usually doesn't get good results, but today I really think I broke the spirit of the competitors."

On the 28th, Korean athletes who won the gold medal in the men's sabre team final at the 19th Hangzhou Asian Games, held at the gymnasium of Hangzhou Dianzi University in China, are greeting Chinese athletes.
[Image source=Yonhap News]

In fencing, the world's strongest men's sabre team achieved a historic three-peat at the Asian Games.

The men's sabre team, consisting of Oh Sangwook (Daejeon City Hall), Gu Bon-gil, Kim Junghwan (both from the Korea Sports Promotion Foundation), and Kim Junho (Hwaseong City Hall), defeated China 45-33 in the team final held at the Hangzhou Dianzi University Gymnasium.

Korea has won the men's sabre team gold medal at the Asian Games for three consecutive times: 2014 Incheon, 2018 Jakarta-Palembang, and now this edition. This team is considered a golden lineup that secured team victories at the Jakarta Asian Games, the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, and this tournament.

In today's match, Gu Bon-gil earned his sixth Asian Games gold medal, tying the record for the most gold medals won by a Korean athlete at the Summer Asian Games alongside Park Taehwan (swimming), Nam Hyunhee (fencing), Seo Jeonggyun (equestrian), Yang Changhun (archery), and Ryu Seoyeon (bowling).

Additionally, individual champion Oh Sangwook became a two-time gold medalist at this tournament. The South Korean team swept six gold medals out of twelve available in fencing, achieving overall victory in this sport for the fourth consecutive time since the 2010 Guangzhou Games.

However, in the women's foil team final, Korea narrowly lost to China 31-34, settling for the silver medal.

On the 28th, Baek In-cheol, who competed in the men's 50m butterfly final at the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games held at the Olympic Sports Center Swimming Pool in Hangzhou, China, is cheering for the gold medal after the race.
[Image source=Yonhap News]

In men's 50m butterfly swimming, Baek Incheol (Busan Jung-gu Office) won the gold medal, becoming the first Korean athlete to claim the Asian Games title in this event. Baek set a new Korean and tournament record with a time of 23.29 seconds in the final held at the Hangzhou Olympic Sports Center.

The men's 50m butterfly became an official Asian Games event starting from the 2006 Doha Games, and the previous best Korean result was a bronze medal by Yang Jeongdu at the 2014 Incheon Games.

In the men's 800m freestyle, Kim Woo-min (Gangwon Provincial Office) added another gold medal with a tournament record time of 7 minutes 46.03 seconds. Kim became a two-time champion at this tournament, having previously won the 4x200m freestyle relay.

With the victories of Baek Incheol and Kim Woo-min, Korean swimming achieved a record five gold medals in a single Asian Games, the highest ever.

In esports and Go, fortunes varied. In the League of Legends (LoL) semifinals, South Korea defeated China 2-0 to advance to the finals.

With the final against Taiwan scheduled for the 29th, the Korean team is highly favored to win gold, as the match against China was expected to be the biggest hurdle to the gold medal.

On the 28th, at the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games (AG) Street Fighter V finals held at the Hangzhou Esports Center in China, after defeating Taiwan's Xiang Youlin with a set score of 4-3 to win the gold medal, he posed for the press in the mixed zone. [Image source=Yonhap News]

Esports saw its first-ever gold medal at the Asian Games. Veteran 44-year-old Kim Gwanwoo won the gold medal in the Street Fighter V final, narrowly defeating Xiang Youlin (Taiwan) 4-3 after a fierce battle.

Kim Gwanwoo's victory is especially significant as it marks the first gold medal won by the Korean team in an esports event since esports became an official Asian Games sport.

On the other hand, Shin Jinseo 9-dan, a gold medal favorite in Go, suffered a bitter defeat in the semifinals against Xu Haohong 9-dan (Taiwan), losing by resignation after 278 moves as Black.

This was an unexpected result, as it was the first time Shin Jinseo lost to a foreign professional player who is not Chinese. Shin secured the bronze medal by defeating Ichiriki Ryo 9-dan (Japan) by resignation after 135 moves as Black in the third-place match.

Xu Haohong, who defeated Shin Jinseo, went on to upset Ke Jie (China) in the final, becoming the surprise gold medalist.

North Korea's An Chang-ok is performing at the women's uneven bars final of the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games (AG) held on the 28th at the Huanglong Sports Center Gymnasium in Hangzhou, China.
An Chang-ok won the gold medal on the uneven bars following her victory on the vault, becoming North Korea's first athlete to win two gold medals. [Image source=Yonhap News]

North Korea's An Changok swept gold medals in the men's vault and parallel bars, becoming a two-time champion at the tournament. Additionally, North Korea won their first gold medal of the Games in the women's 10m running target team shooting event, totaling three gold medals on the day.

As of the 28th, the South Korean national team ranks second overall with 24 gold, 23 silver, and 39 bronze medals. China leads the medal table with 90 gold medals, while Japan is third with 18 golds and 30 silver and bronze medals combined.

North Korea rose from 19th to 10th place in the overall standings after adding three gold medals, five silver, and four bronze medals on this day.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.