(Asiad) S. Korea adds gold medals in fencing, shooting, while defending champs fall short
NAGOYA/TOKYO, Sept. 23 (Yonhap) -- South Korea snapped up two gold medals at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games on Wednesday, with a shooter on target for gold in record-breaking fashion and a fencer winning his second consecutive title.
These two gold medals raised South Korea's total to eight after four days in the medal race, seven back of Japan for second place. China is once again running away with the competition with 48 gold medals.
The day's first gold medal for South Korea belonged to shooter Choo Ga-eun, who won the women's 10-meter air pistol title with a new Asian record score of 246.3 points. Choo beat Shen Yijao of China by five points.
Oh Sang-uk of South Korea poses with his gold medal won in the men's individual sabre fencing event at the Asian Games at Aichi Sky Expo Hall in Tokoname, Japan, on Sept. 23, 2026. (Yonhap)
Choo also helped South Korea take silver in the 10m air pistol team event earlier Wednesday, after setting an Asian Games competition record in the individual qualification round with 582 points.
Kim Bo-mi and Oh Ye-jin each scored 574 points for their team total of 1,730 points.
In fencing, Oh Sang-uk defended his men's sabre individual crown with a 15-13 victory over Shen Chenpeng of China in the final.
Oh's gold was South Korea's fifth in a row in this event. Before Oh's back-to-back gold medals, Gu Bon-gil had won three in a row from 2010 to 2018. Also in fencing, Park Ji-hee got silver in the women's foil individual event after a 15-4 loss to Yuka Ueno in the final.
Other defending Asiad champions were not as successful.
In swimming, Hwang Sun-woo settled for silver in the men's 200m freestyle after clocking 1:44.62. Zhang Zhanshuo of China took the gold in 1:43.49 while also breaking Hwang's Asian continental record of 1:43.92.
The women's badminton team also came up short in its quest for a second straight gold, as it ended up with bronze following a 3-1 loss to Japan in the semifinals.
World No. 1 An Se-young won her opening singles match over Akane Yamaguchi, but then South Korea lost the next three matches -- two doubles and one singles -- to miss out on the final.
Choo Ga-eun of South Korea poses with her gold medal won in the women's 10-meter air pistol shooting event at the Asian Games at Aichi Prefectural General Shooting Gallery in Toyota, Japan, on Sept. 23, 2026. (Yonhap)
South Korea won two other medals in swimming Wednesday, with the 16-year-old Kim Seung-won finishing third in the women's 100m backstroke and then helping South Korea win bronze as well in the mixed 4x100m medley relay.
A silver medal came from wushu, where Lee Ha-sung finished second in the men's daoshu and gunshu.
He scored 19.406 points out of a maximum 20 for South Korea's second wushu medal of the Asiad. Gao Xiaobin of China won the gold with 19.582 points, and Lee held off Clement Su Wei Ting of Malaysia by 0.003 point.
South Korea collected its first medals of the competition in athletics and esports.
Choe Byeong-kwang earned bronze in the men's half marathon race walk Wednesday with a time of 1:28:35. This was Choe's first Asian Games medal in his fourth appearance.
On the first day of medal competition in esports, Kim Young-chan grabbed bronze in the auto racing game Gran Turismo 7.
The baseball team won its third straight game with an 18-1 rout of Thailand and secured a trip to the Super Round, inching closer to the country's fifth consecutive gold medal.
South Korea picked up bronze medals in the men's and women's team events in table tennis, after both lost to Japan in the semifinals.
Kim Young-chan of South Korea competes in the final of Gran Turismo 7 in the esports event at the Asian Games at Aichi Sky Expo Hall in Tokoname, Japan, on Sept. 23, 2026. (Yonhap)
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.