Archery, swimming underperform as Korea finishes third with 39 golds; Japan sets all-time record; China claims 12th straight overall title

South Korean players pose for a photo after winning the gold medal in men's football at the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games at Toyota Stadium in Aichi Prefecture, Japan, on Saturday. Eom Ji-seong, who claimed both the tournament's top scorer and top assist awards, celebrates among his teammates. [Yonhap]
South Korean players pose for a photo after winning the gold medal in men's football at the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games at Toyota Stadium in Aichi Prefecture, Japan, on Saturday. Eom Ji-seong, who claimed both the tournament's top scorer and top assist awards, celebrates among his teammates. [Yonhap]

South Korea finished third at the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games with 39 gold medals, 43 silvers and 68 bronzes, trailing China (169 golds, 89 silvers, 83 bronzes) and Japan (83 golds, 95 silvers, 91 bronzes).

The haul fell short of the Korean Sport & Olympic Committee's target of 40 to 45 golds and marked the country's lowest gold-medal count since the 1982 New Delhi Games, where it won 28 golds, 28 silvers and 37 bronzes.

The Games closed Sunday, and South Korea's performance drew widespread assessments of underachievement. Thirty days before the opening ceremony, the Korean Sport & Olympic Committee had published sport-by-sport gold-medal targets: five for archery — the most of any discipline — four each for swimming, shooting, fencing and taekwondo, three for badminton, and two each for modern pentathlon, table tennis, judo and esports.

Archery fell short of those targets, failing for the first time in history to win a gold in the women's recurve event and finishing with three golds overall. Swimming was limited to one gold — three fewer than targeted — as Kim Woo-min, who had won three titles at the previous Games, was hampered by injury. Shooting and taekwondo each claimed three golds, while badminton took two.

Fencing, led by double gold medalist Oh Sang-uk, met its target of four golds and delivered the most gold medals of any single sport for South Korea. Host nation Japan swept six fencing golds, however, denying Korea a fifth consecutive overall title in the discipline.

Modern pentathlon delivered as expected with two golds, though Korea had to share the top spot with China.

Table tennis produced neither a gold nor a silver, while judo managed just one gold.

Gold-medal hopes in athletics, sepak takraw, wushu and jiu-jitsu also went unfulfilled, contributing to the overall assessment of a disappointing performance.

Bright spots included basketball, which surpassed expectations by producing three golds — men's and women's 5-on-5 and men's 3-on-3. Baseball extended its winning streak to five consecutive Asian Games titles, and the men's football team claimed a fourth straight gold. Women's handball reclaimed the top spot for the first time in eight years, and team sports as a whole outperformed South Korea's showing at the Hangzhou Games.

Esports fulfilled its two-gold mandate, and Korea also picked up two golds each in sailing and canoe, along with one in teqball, which made its debut as an official Asian Games discipline at this edition. The number of sports in which Korea won at least one gold reached 22, comparable to the 20 recorded in Hangzhou.

Kim Taek-soo, director of the national team training center, reflected on the results at a closing press conference Sunday. "Despite the disadvantages brought by changes in the sport structure, there were meaningful achievements — a diversification of medal-winning disciplines and first-ever golds in new sports," he said.

South Korea had won more than 50 golds at every Asian Games from the 1986 Seoul Games (93 golds, 55 silvers, 76 bronzes) through the 2014 Incheon Games (79 golds, 70 silvers, 79 bronzes), finishing second overall seven times across those eight editions and cementing its reputation as a leading sports nation.

That standing began to erode at the 2018 Jakarta-Palembang Games, when the gold count dropped sharply to 49 and Korea slipped to third behind China and Japan. The downward trend continued through the 2022 Hangzhou Games (42 golds, 59 silvers, 89 bronzes) and into the current edition, with a third-place finish appearing to become the new norm.

The Korean Sport & Olympic Committee acknowledged that not only China and host Japan but also Central Asian and Southeast Asian nations are rapidly closing the gap, and said the country faces the urgent task of rigorously reassessing its competitiveness across all disciplines with the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics now two years away.

Korean Sport & Olympic Committee President Yoo Seung-min presents gold medals to South Korean players at the men's football awards ceremony at Toyota Stadium in Aichi Prefecture, Japan, on Saturday. [Yonhap]
Korean Sport & Olympic Committee President Yoo Seung-min presents gold medals to South Korean players at the men's football awards ceremony at Toyota Stadium in Aichi Prefecture, Japan, on Saturday. [Yonhap]

Host nation Japan made history at the Games, surpassing 80 golds at a Summer Asian Games for the first time and eclipsing its previous all-time record of 78 golds, 53 silvers and 33 bronzes set at the 1966 Bangkok Games.

Excluding the 2018 Jakarta-Palembang Games — when Japan sent its top athletes ahead of a home Olympics and won 75 golds — the country had not exceeded 70 golds in the past four decades. This time Japan added more than 30 golds to its tally compared with the Hangzhou Games, where it won 52, making the improvement all the more striking.

Japan's ability to pull away from South Korea owed much to steady gold-medal accumulation in high-medal-count disciplines: athletics (10 golds), judo (9), cycling (8), swimming (7) and wrestling (7).

In fencing, where Japan surpassed Korea for the first time, and in several other sports, the prevailing view is that the momentum built around hosting the 2020 Tokyo Olympics — held in 2021 — translated directly into stronger performances.

China won fewer golds than the 201 it claimed on home soil in Hangzhou, but still took home more golds than South Korea and Japan combined, claiming its 12th consecutive overall title.

China's swimming team alone produced 30 golds, spearheaded by Zhang Zhanshuo, who became the first swimmer in Asian Games history to win seven individual titles at a single edition. Athletics added 17 golds, shooting 16, wushu 12 and diving 10.

Uzbekistan (21 golds) and India (19 golds) swapped fourth and fifth place but, as in Hangzhou, the top five nations remained unchanged.

North Korea, making its first appearance at a Summer Asian Games held in Japan, sent a delegation of 107 athletes — smaller than the 185 it fielded in Hangzhou — and finished 12th overall with 7 golds, 13 silvers and 9 bronzes.

Given the reduced delegation size, the result was widely seen as a creditable showing compared with the 11 golds North Korea won in Hangzhou. All seven of the country's gold medals came in weightlifting.

Meanwhile, the celebrations were not without controversy. Several male football players who earned military service exemptions by winning gold drew criticism for inappropriate remarks and conduct. Park Seung-su of Newcastle United sparked a backlash after posting a photo of himself wearing a military discharge cap. As public criticism mounted, Park issued an apology on Instagram, writing, "I would like to apologize to the fans regarding the photo I posted on social media right after the final. I am truly sorry to anyone who felt uncomfortable because of my actions."


hope@heraldcorp.com