South Korean Relay Team Wins Asian Games Bronze After Two Successful Appeals

South Korea’s men’s 4x100-meter relay team secured an Asian Games bronze medal after successfully challenging two rulings that had threatened to erase its result from the competition in Japan.

Seo Min-jun, Joel Jin Nwamadi, Daniel Biwesa and Lee Jae-seong finished the final in 38.43 seconds on Monday evening. Their time established a South Korean national record and placed them third on the track behind China and Taiwan.

China won the race in 38.17 seconds, while Taiwan claimed silver in 38.32. Thailand crossed the line fourth in 38.49, six hundredths of a second behind South Korea.

Despite that finishing order, the official results initially listed Thailand as the bronze medalist and South Korea in fourth place. Sprint coach Ha Kyung-soo said the team had not received a clear explanation for why the result shown online had changed. South Korea filed an appeal, and organizers subsequently corrected the standings and restored the Korean quartet to third place. Organizers did not immediately explain the initial change.

The successful protest was the team’s second of the competition. South Korea had earlier been disqualified following Sunday’s heats over an alleged violation in a baton exchange. The team appealed that decision as well and was ultimately reinstated, allowing it to run in the medal race.

The sequence meant the four sprinters first had to overturn a ruling to reach the final and then challenge another result after earning a place on the podium. The first dispute concerned their baton exchange in the heats, while the second concerned the official placement published after the medal race. Once both decisions were reversed, the team’s bronze medal and national-record time stood as the official outcome.

The corrected result left South Korea just 0.15 seconds behind gold medalist China and 0.11 seconds behind Taiwan. It also confirmed the Korean team ahead of Thailand by a narrow margin in a tightly contested final.

For Seo, Nwamadi, Biwesa and Lee, the medal combined a national benchmark on the track with an unusual procedural contest away from it. Their 38.43-second performance was ultimately recognized only after the second successful appeal in as many days.