Korea goes ‘golden’ after 12 days… silver in handball and archery

South Korean athletes’ gold medal winning streak, which has continued every day since the start of the Hangzhou 2022 Asian Games, has been broken after just 12 days.

The Korean women’s handball team, bidding to win their third consecutive title, lost 19-29 to Japan in the final at the Zhejiang Gongsang University Gymnasium in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, China, on 5 May.

South Korea’s women’s handball team has won seven of the nine editions of the tournament from Beijing 1990, when the sport became an Asian Games programme, to this one, missing out on gold only at Guangzhou 2010, where they were beaten by Japan in the quarter-finals.

It was the first time in 13 years since Guangzhou that Korea’s adult women’s handball team lost to Japan, a shocking result.

After falling behind by six goals in the first half, Korea was unable to overcome the deficit and went down by 10 points.

After men’s basketball and women’s basketball, women’s handball continued to struggle at the Asian Games, with the ball games being dominated by Japan. Women’s volleyball didn’t even have a chance to compete against Japan, falling to fifth to eighth place.

Unlike women’s handball, baseball had a smile on its face in the Korea-Japan match, giving it a green light to go through to the final.

The Korean baseball team defeated Japan 2-0 in the first game of the Super Round.

Starting pitcher Park Se-woong (Lotte Giants) pitched six scoreless innings and reliever Park Young-hyun (KT WIZ) locked the back door on Japan with a two-inning save.

At the plate, No. 4 hitter Noh Shi-hwan (Hanwha Eagles) had two RBIs with a sacrifice fly and a single to left field.

Women’s hockey secured silver after beating Japan in a shootout to reach the final.

South Korea won 4-3 in a shootout after drawing 2-2 with Japan.

The women’s hockey team will go for gold against hosts China on 7 July.

After a gold medal parade on 24 September, when the medal race began in earnest after opening on 23 September, South Korea went silent on this day.

The men’s compound archery team took silver in the team event.

The team of Joo Jae-hoon (Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power), Yang Jae-won (Commerce) and Kim Jong-ho (Hyundai Steel) lost to India 230-235 in the team final.

Joo Jae-hoon, who has been labelled as the ‘national champion from the same race’, won his second silver medal after winning the mixed team event the previous day.

Earlier in the day, the Korean team of So Chae-won (Hyundai Mobis), Oh Yoo-hyun (Jeonbuk Provincial Office) and Cho Soo-ah (Hyundai Mobis) defeated Indonesia 232-229 in the third place match of the women’s compound archery team event to add a bronze medal to their collection.

The women’s basketball team won the bronze medal with a 93-63 victory in the second North-South match-up of the tournament.

It was the fourth consecutive Asian Games podium finish for South Korean women’s basketball, including a silver medal in Guangzhou 2010, a gold in Incheon 2014 and a silver with North Korea in Jakarta-Palembang 2018.

North Korea finished fourth after losing to South Korea in the bronze medal match by a wide margin in the group stage (62-81).

Women’s volleyball, which failed to reach the quarter-finals and was denied a medal for the first time in 17 years, also redeemed itself in the quarter-final round with a 3-1 set point victory over the DPRK, the first inter-Korean match in six years.

South Korea and North Korea will compete in the fifth to eighth place matches to finish higher in the standings.

In the men’s wrestling, top heavyweight Kim Min-seok (Suwon City Hall) won his second consecutive bronze medal after defeating India’s Naveen 5-1 in the Greco-Roman 130kg bronze medal match.

Joo Sung-hyun (Korea Jiu-Jitsu Association), who won the men’s 69kg jiu-jitsu title, also stood on the podium after defeating Mongolia’s Tuvdentarba Choi Jamtsu in the bronze medal match.

In weightlifting, Kim Soo-hyun (Busan City Sports Association) won bronze in the women’s 76kg category after finishing fourth at the previous two Asian Games.

South Korea remained in third place with 33 gold, 47 silver and 77 bronze medals as of 10.30pm. The gap to second-placed Japan, which has 44 gold medals, has widened. 파워볼게임