Kim Young-bum of South Korea celebrates after setting a games record in the men's 50m freestyle heats at the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre on Monday. [Yonhap]
Kim Young-bum of South Korea celebrates after setting a games record in the men's 50m freestyle heats at the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre on Monday. [Yonhap]

National team swimmer Kim Young-bum, 20, gave South Korea its first gold medal in swimming at the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games.

Kim won the men's 50m freestyle final at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre in Japan on Monday, clocking 21.66 seconds to set a games record.

The result gave South Korea back-to-back gold medals in the men's 50m freestyle at the Asian Games, following Ji Yu-chan's victory at the 2022 Hangzhou Games.

Kim had already claimed silver in the men's 100m freestyle on Sunday with a time of 47.65 seconds, making the gold his second medal of the Games and his first Asian Games gold.

He had also set a games record in the morning heats, touching the wall in 21.71 seconds to qualify first overall — shaving 0.01 seconds off the previous games record of 21.72 set by Ji at the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games.

Kim then broke his own heats mark by another 0.05 seconds in the final, rewriting the games record twice in a single day.

Starting from lane 4 with a reaction time of 0.66 seconds, he was the first to finish in 21.66 seconds.

Hong Kong's Lui Yun-tao Ho took silver in 21.76 seconds, while Ji, who was chasing a second consecutive Asian Games title in the event, settled for bronze in 21.94 seconds.


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