[Anchor]
Rowing athletes suffered particularly hard due to the poor management at the Nagoya Asian Games. It was a continuous series of hardships, from arrival to a shortened competition schedule. However, rower Park Hyun-soo, who shed a whopping 20kg to compete in the tournament, overcame the adversity to win a precious bronze medal.
Reporter Han Sung-hee has the story from Nagoya.
[Reporter]
The national rowing team became the biggest victims of the poor organization at this tournament, enduring a grueling experience: paying 450,000 won in taxi fares because no bus showed up upon arrival, waiting nine hours for room assignments at the cruise ship athletes' village, putting up with packed shuttle buses that ran only once an hour, and to make matters worse, having their training limited to just one hour per athlete over two days because the restoration of the venue damaged by the great flood early this month was delayed.
[Kang Min-sung / National Rowing Team Member: I think it was a bit tough because of the anxiety of wondering, 'Will I be able to do well in the competition?' We couldn't even train properly....]
With the competition schedule originally set for five days being shortened so that the finals for all events were held in a single day today (September 24), some athletes had to give up their originally desired events, but they still did their best to race through the waters.
Ace Park Hyun-soo even managed to win a medal.
He finished third after a fierce battle in the lightweight single sculls final.
Park, who reached the top of the lightweight division at the 2018 Jakarta Games but had to gain weight to compete in the heavyweight division when the lightweight category was abolished at the Hangzhou Games, showed fierce fighting spirit by undergoing harsh weight loss once again when the lightweight division was revived for this tournament, putting a precious medal around his neck.
[Park Hyun-soo / National Rowing Team Member: I lost almost about 20kg to win a medal, and while it is a bit disappointing, I gave it my absolute best, so I have no regrets.]
Despite the difficulties caused by the poor management, the national rowing team wrapped up the tournament, cutting through the water with no regrets.
(Video footage by Kim Se-kyung | Video editing by Lee So-young)
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