South Korea Wins First Shooting Gold at Asian Games as Chu Ga-eun Tops Women's 10m Air Pistol

South Korea has secured its first gold medal in shooting, traditionally a reliable medal-producing event.

Chu Ga-eun (25, Imsil County Office) captured the gold medal in the women's 10m air pistol individual final at the Aichi-Nagoya 2026 Asian Games, held at the Aichi Prefectural General Shooting Range in Japan today (the 23rd), with an Asian record score of 246.3 points.

After securing only two silver and bronze medals over the previous three days, the South Korean shooting team breathed a sigh of relief and found reason to celebrate.

Chu is the first South Korean to win the event since Kim Yun-mi claimed the title at the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games, 16 years ago.

Earlier in the day, Chu teamed up with Kim Bo-mi (Busan City Hall) and Oh Ye-jin (IBK Bank) in the women's 10m air pistol team event—which doubled as the individual qualification round—to combine for a score of 1,730 points and win the silver medal.

Meanwhile, South Korean swimming star Hwang Sun-woo (Gangwon State University) failed in his bid for consecutive victories in the men's 200m freestyle.

Hwang, the champion of the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games, touched the pad in second place with a time of 1:44.62 in the men's 200m freestyle final at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre, finishing behind China's Zhang Zhanshuo, who set a new Asian record with 1:43.49.

Kim Seung-won (Gyeonggi Physical Education High School), a rising talent in women's backstroke, finished third in the women's 100m backstroke final with a time of 1:00.10, claiming her second bronze medal of the current Games following her podium finish in the 50m backstroke.

In wushu, veteran South Korean athlete Lee Ha-sung scored a total of 19.406 points in the men's daoshu and gunshu events at the Nagoya Aichi Prefectural Gymnasium, taking the silver medal behind China's Gao Xiaobin (19.582 points).

Lee, who captured South Korea's first gold medal of the 2014 Incheon Asian Games in changquan, returned to the Asian Games podium after 12 years.

Race walking standout Choi Byeong-kwang (35, Samsung Electronics) won the bronze medal in the men's half marathon race walk on the Nagoya road course with a time of 1:28:35.

This marks South Korea's first athletics medal of the current Games and the first Asian Games medal for Choi in his fourth attempt since the 2014 Incheon Games.

The South Korean baseball team, aiming for its fifth consecutive title, overwhelmingly defeated Thailand 18-1 to secure its third straight win and advance to the Super Round as the top team from Group B. They will face Group A winner Japan in a crucial showdown on the 25th.

Led by shuttlecock queen An Se-young (Samsung Life Insurance), the South Korean women's badminton team lost 1-3 to Japan in the women's team semifinals, failing to win consecutive titles and settling for a bronze medal.

As of 5:30 PM, South Korea sits in third place in the medal standings with 7 golds, 7 silvers, and 22 bronzes, trailing China (44 golds) and Japan (13 golds).

South Korea leads fourth-place Kazakhstan (7 golds) by virtue of holding three more silver medals.

(Photo: Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.