Superstar An Se Young on Sept. 29 kisses her gold medal in women's badminton singles of the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games at Ichinomiya City Gymnasium in Aichi Prefecture, Japan. (Badminton Korea Association)
By Oh Jung Eun
Korea on Sept. 29 added three gold medals on the 10th day of the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games in Japan.
An Se Young, the world's top female badminton player, beat that day No. 3 Akane Yamaguchi of Japan in straight sets (21-17, 21-9) in the women's singles final at Ichinomiya City Gymnasium in Aichi Prefecture.
Having won the gold in the singles and team events at the 2022 Asian Games in Hangzhou, China, held in 2023, An became the first player in the tournament's history to win two straight women's singles titles in her sport.
Earlier in women's doubles, the world No. 2 duo of Lee So Hee and Baek Ha Na rallied (26-28, 21-18, 21-18) to beat the top-ranked pair of Liu Shengshu and Tan Ning of China. Avenging their runner-up finish in the last tournament in Hangzhou, the Korean team secured Korea's first Asiad gold in their event since the 2002 edition in Busan.
Kim Min-young on Sept. 29 holds up her gold medal after winning the women's 87-kg kurash title of the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games at Aichi Prefectural Martial Arts Hall in Nagoya, Japan. (Yonhap News)
Korea also won its first gold in kurash, a traditional wrestling style from Uzbekistan that debuted as an official event at the 2018 Asiad in Indonesia. Kim Min-young topped the women's 87-kg class by defeating Shih Liu Li-ling of Taiwan 5-0 in the final.
As of Sept. 3, Korea stayed third in the medal standings with 24 gold, 27 silver and 44 bronze. China was atop the board with 143 gold and Japan was second with 45.
cloveroh@korea.kr
