Korea Making Up Medal Count Ground

On December 10 in Doha, Qatar, where the 15th Asian Games are taking place, it was Korea’s “golden day.” After a slow start in the beginning of the competitions, Korea experienced a gold rush of 10 gold medals in taekwondo, wrestling, fencing and cycling. With 37 gold medals, Korea caught up with second place Japan (38 gold) to trail by just one gold medal.

Initially, it had seemed as if Japan would not be a match for Korea. Before the games started, Korea’s goal had been to come home with more than 70 gold medals. Chung Hyun-sook, Chef de Mission of Korea said, “We will win 72, 73 gold medals and shake off Japan to take second place in the Asian Games.”

On the other hand, Japan’s goal was modest. Japan’s Tsutomu Hayashi said, “We would like to win more gold medals than we did at the 2002 Busan Asian Games (44 golds). At the moment, our goal is around 50.”

But, at the start of the games, Korea was held back by China and now has to put up a hard fight for second. Korea was blocked by China in matches that had been considered easy ground for winning medals, such as shooting, weight lifting, badminton and table tennis. Meanwhile, Japan pushed ahead of Korea by winning 17 gold medals in their traditionally strong field of swimming alone.

As of December 10, the number of Korea and Japan’s gold medals has almost evened out, and it looks like the medal race between the two countries will become even more exciting. Korea still has its strong events of archery, men and women’s handball, fencing, freestyle wrestling and cycling. Japan is strong in karate and track and field events. When closely examining the matches that are left, the Korean team expects a close match of three gold medals difference for second place.

uni@donga.com