▲ Chu Ga-eun smiles brightly after winning the gold medal in the women's 10m air pistol final at the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games at the Aichi Prefectural Shooting Range in Japan on the 23rd. (Photo: Yonhap News)
Chu Ga-eun (25, Imsil County Office) has secured South Korea's first shooting gold medal of the ongoing Asian Games, breaking records twice in her debut appearance at the regional multi-sport event after the national shooting team went without gold for the first three days.
Chu scored 246.3 points to finish first among eight finalists in the women's 10m air pistol individual final at the Aichi Prefectural Shooting Range in Japan today (the 23rd).
The silver medal went to Shen Yaoyao (241.3 points) and the bronze to Zhang Lanxin (221.6 points, both from China).
On this day, Chu set new records in both the individual qualification and final rounds.
In the individual qualification, she scored 582 points (with 19 inner tens) to set a new Asian Games qualification record, advancing to the final in first place overall.
In the final, she surpassed the previous Asian record of 245.3 points set by Japan's Yukari Konishi in 2017 by 1.0 point.
This score also tied the Korean record set by Kim Min-jung at the 100th National Sports Festival in 2019.
This marks the first time in 16 years that a South Korean shooter has won the women's 10m air pistol individual event since Kim Yun-mi at the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games.
Displaying dominant skill in the individual final, Chu surged to the lead from her first 10 shots and maintained her top position to the end.
Unfazed by the loud shouts and cheers from the Chinese cheering squad before and after her shots, Chu held onto her lead throughout the final, delivering South Korea's first gold medal in shooting after the team was repeatedly blocked by Chinese athletes over the previous three days.
Chu secured a medal with a total of 205.4 points after 20 shots, and reached 225.9 points by her 22nd shot, entering the final two shots leading Shen Yaoyao by 4.1 points to vie for the gold.
Adding 20.4 points in the final two shots, Chu clinched the victory by a massive 5.0-point margin over Shen.
First selected for the national team in 2017, Chu competed in the air pistol mixed team event alongside Jin Jong-oh at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
However, she failed to earn the national badge in 2023 when the Hangzhou Asian Games were held, missing out on the Asian Games stage.
Riding an upward momentum marked by a bronze medal at the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) Munich World Cup and a fourth-place finish at the Changwon World Cup this year, she finally reached the summit of Asia in her debut Asian Games appearance.
Earlier, Chu teamed up with Oh Ye-jin (IBK Industrial Bank) and Kim Bo-mi (Busan City Hall) to claim a silver medal in the team event.
Having secured one gold and one silver medal side-by-side in her first Asian Games, Chu will compete in the mixed team event in this discipline on the 25th to hunt for another gold.
(Photo: Yonhap News)
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