Following a smooth start with Ban Hyo-jin's bronze medal on the opening day, the South Korean shooting team has secured another bronze medal in the men's 10m air rifle team event.

The national team—comprising Park Ha-jun (KT), Shin Mingi (Changwon City Hall), and Kwon Hyup-jun (Seosan City Hall)—combined for a score of 1,884.2 points in the men's 10m air rifle individual qualification and team event held at the Aichi Prefectural General Shooting Range in Japan on the 21st, finishing third behind China (1,899.0 points) and India (1,890.1 points).

China claimed the gold medal by breaking its own previous world record of 1,898.4 points, which it had set at the 2025 Cairo World Championships.

Park Ha-jun recorded the highest score among the South Korean shooters with 631.4 points, while Shin Mingi shot 629.2 points and Kwon Hyup-jun scored 623.6 points.

South Korea, which was locked in a fierce battle for the bronze medal with Indonesia, turned the standings around in the final sixth series by combining for 316.5 points across the three athletes.

Park Ha-jun, in particular, demonstrated strong closing performance by sequentially shooting 105.6, 105.2, and 106.1 points in the final three series to lead the comeback.

South Korea clinched the bronze medal by edging out Indonesia (1,882.5 points) by a 1.7-point margin.

With this result, South Korea has won a team medal in this event for the second consecutive time, following the 2022 Hangzhou Games where they took home the silver.

Park Ha-jun and Shin Mingi, who teamed up for the team medal, subsequently competed in the individual final.

Park Ha-jun advanced directly to the final by placing fourth in the qualification round. Shin Mingi initially ranked 9th overall, but advanced to the final as China's third-highest shooter, Zhang Changhong (630.6 points, 5th overall), was excluded due to the rule allowing a maximum of two participants per country.

Kwon Hyup-jun failed to reach the final after finishing 28th.

However, in the individual final, Shin Mingi finished 6th and Park Ha-jun stayed at 7th, failing to add more medals.

World No. 9 Park Ha-jun and Shin Mingi, competing in his first-ever Asian Games, started anxiously in the final by shooting 9.8 and 9.9 points respectively on their first shots.

Park Ha-jun dropped to last place in 8th with 51.4 points after his first 5 shots, but climbed to 7th with a total of 103.4 points after 10 shots.

He avoided early elimination by recording 124.7 points through 12 shots, but added only 21.0 points in the next two shots, remaining in 7th place with 145.7 points after 14 shots.

Shin Mingi, who was in 4th place with 104.7 points after the first 10 shots, also saw his ranking drop afterward.

Positioned 6th with 146.0 points after 14 shots, Shin Mingi added 20.2 points in the next two shots to finish the final in 6th place with a 16-shot total of 166.2 points.

Right before elimination, both athletes fell behind Du Linshu (China) by 0.5 points each, pushing them out of the medal competition.

Park Ha-jun, the individual silver medalist at the 2022 Hangzhou Games, saw his bid for consecutive individual medals fall through.

Sheng Lihao (254.2 points, China) won the gold medal, while Himanshu Dahiya (252.4 points) and Rudrankksh Patil (230.9 points, both of India) captured the silver and bronze medals, respectively.

(Photo: Yonhap News)