▲ South Korea's Park Ha-jun (right) and Ban Hyo-jin aim their targets during the preliminary round of the 10m air rifle mixed team event at the Aichi Prefectural General Shooting Range in Aichi Prefecture, Japan, on the 22nd. (Photo: Yonhap News)
South Korean shooters Ban Hyo-jin and Park Ha-jun have teamed up to win a silver medal in the 10m air rifle mixed team event at the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games.
Ban and Park scored 252.6 and 250.3 points respectively in the final held today (the 22nd) at the Aichi Prefectural General Shooting Range in Japan, combining for a total of 502.9 points to finish in second place.
China took first place with 507.1 points, while Japan placed third with 439.7 points.
India finished in fourth place with 376.3 points.
Advancing to the final in third place from the preliminaries, South Korea combined for 104.9 points in the first series, starting in second place behind China.
They scored 209.2 points through the second series, slipping to third place 0.2 points behind Japan, and remained in third behind China and Japan with 314.3 points after each shooter completed 15 shots.
South Korea finished the first single-shot section with 378.1 points, maintaining third place 0.1 points behind Japan.
After India was eliminated first with 376.3 points, South Korea engaged in a fierce battle with Japan for second place.
South Korea edged ahead of Japan by 0.2 points with 399.0 points after the first shot, but fell 0.8 points behind Japan with 418.9 points after the second shot.
The rankings shifted as Ban Hyo-jin and Park Ha-jun scored 10.0 and 9.9 points respectively.
Facing elimination, South Korea steadied their breathing through a timeout and turned the match around with their final shots.
Ban hit 10.3 points and Park hit 10.9 points, whereas for Japan, Misaki Nobata scored 10.5 points while Naoki Hanakawa was limited to 9.5 points.
South Korea overtook Japan by 0.4 points with 440.1 points, and Park Ha-jun broke into a bright smile only after confirming the final shot.
Later, South Korea entered the gold medal match trailing China by 3.5 points, but failed to narrow the gap and claimed the silver medal.
China's Wang Zifei and Sheng Lihao combined for a total of 507.1 points to win the championship, breaking the previous world record set by Norway in Yerevan, Armenia, last March by 0.4 points.
Ban Hyo-jin, the bronze medalist in the women's individual event of this discipline at the current Games, harvested her second medal at her first-ever Asian Games.
Park Ha-jun, who won a bronze medal in the men's team event yesterday, also put around his neck his second medal of this competition and the fifth Asian Games medal of his career.
In particular, Park continued his strong performance on major stages by medaling once again in a mixed event, following his mixed team bronze medal at the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games and mixed team silver medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
(Photo: Yonhap News)
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