Kim Young-beom (Gangwon Provincial Government) has captured South Korea's first gold medal of the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games.

Kim was the first to touch the pad in the men's 50m freestyle final held at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre in Japan on September 21, setting a new tournament record of 21.66 seconds.

With this victory, South Korean swimming has successfully defended its title in this event for the second consecutive time, following Ji Yuchan (Daegu Metropolitan City Government) at the 2022 Hangzhou Games.

Kim, who claimed the silver medal in the 100m freestyle yesterday, added a gold medal just a day later, emerging as the frontrunner for the South Korean delegation's medal race at this tournament.

During the preliminary heats held this morning, Kim set a tournament record of 21.71 seconds to advance to the final in first place overall, while the previous champion Ji Yuchan ranked third overall in the preliminaries with 22.23 seconds.

Kim's time of 21.71 seconds shaved 0.01 seconds off the previous tournament record of 21.72 seconds set by Ji Yuchan when he won the gold medal at the 2022 Hangzhou Games.


In the final, Kim further lowered his preliminary record by 0.05 seconds with an explosive race, breaking the tournament record back-to-back.

The two athletes engaged in a fierce battle in the final as well.

Starting from lane 4, Kim dived in with a reaction time of 0.66 seconds and surged to the lead with an explosive spurt to reach the top of the podium.

The silver medal went to Ian Yentou Ho of Hong Kong, who clocked 21.76 seconds.

Ji Yuchan, racing from lane 3 in pursuit of his second consecutive tournament title, touched the pad in 21.94 seconds to claim the bronze medal.

(Photo: Yonhap News)