[Anchor]

Rising star of South Korean swimming Kim Yeong-beom has captured his first gold medal at the Nagoya Asian Games. He sliced through the water to win the 50m freestyle, setting a new meet record.

Reporting from Tokyo, this is Ha Seong-nyong.

[Reporter]

Having missed out on the 100m freestyle gold by a mere 0.04 seconds, Kim Yeong-beom was fiercely determined from the 50m freestyle preliminaries.

He advanced to the finals in first place overall with a meet record of 21.71 seconds, unable to hide his joy in the interview zone.

[Kim Yeong-beom / National Swimming Team Member: Wow, nice!]

He carried that momentum into the finals.

Standing in lane 4 amid the passionate cheers of his family, Kim delivered the race of his life right as the starting gun sounded.

Using his 195cm frame, he powered relentlessly through the water, stretching out until the very end to touch the pad first, edging the Hong Kong swimmer by 0.1 seconds.

Clocking in at 21.66 seconds and shaving another 0.05 seconds off the meet record he had set in the morning, Kim embraced and celebrated with defending champion Ji Yu-chan, who took third place.

[Kim Yeong-beom / National Swimming Team Member: Wow, I am not sure if this is real. It is twice as thrilling as yesterday's disappointment, and it feels like I have finally proven myself as a freestyle swimmer.]

Kim's mother, cheering from the stands, shed tears of joy.

[Kim Hye-won / Mother of Kim Yeong-beom: Yeong-beom, fighting. I love you, Mom loves you. Let's go home and have spicy blue crab stew.]

The national anthem rang out at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre for the first time in this competition.

[Kim Yeong-beom / National Swimming Team Member: Hearing that grand national anthem play here just to celebrate me is, wow, I cannot put it into words. We had to do it.]

Having wrapped up his individual events by proving himself as a powerhouse in Asian sprinting at this competition, Kim now sets his sights on additional medals in the remaining three relay events.

In the men's 4x200m freestyle relay, where they sought back-to-back titles, the team claimed the bronze medal behind China and Japan.

Yoon Ji-hwan and Kim Seung-won captured matching bronze medals in the men's and women's 50m backstroke.

(Camera: Park Hyun-chul | Video Editing: Hwang Ji-young | Design: Park Tae-young)