South Korea Adds Two Kayak Sprint Silvers at Asian Games
Jang Sang-won took silver in the men's kayak single 500 meters, while Choi Min-kyu and Seon Min-ju finished second in the mixed kayak double 500 meters. South Korea ended its sprint canoeing campaign with two golds and two silvers.
South Korea collected two silver medals in kayak sprint competition at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games on Saturday, completing its sprint canoeing campaign with four medals in total.
Jang Sang-won finished runner-up in the men's kayak single 500-meter final at the Miyoshi Lake Canoe Course in Miyoshi, east of Nagoya. He crossed the line in 1 minute, 44.433 seconds, only 0.791 second behind Uzbekistan's Shakhriyor Makhkamov, who won gold in 1:43.642. Kazakhstan's Dmitriy Kholmogorov claimed bronze in 1:44.453, just two-hundredths of a second behind Jang.
Jang made an aggressive start and held first place at the halfway point. His 250-meter split of 48.77 seconds was the fastest in the field, but Makhkamov overtook him during the second half of the race. The result gave Jang his second medal of the Games after he helped South Korea win the men's kayak four 500-meter title on Thursday.
South Korea earned another silver in the mixed kayak double 500-meter final. Choi Min-kyu and Seon Min-ju recorded a time of 1:40.349, finishing 0.905 second behind China's Li Chenhao and Zhang Luxi. Japan's Rin Fukuda and Akihiro Inoue took bronze in 1:40.720.
The Korean pair sat second behind Kazakhstan after the opening 250 meters. China, fifth at the halfway mark, produced a strong late surge to move through the field and secure the gold medal. Choi's silver also became his second medal of the competition, following his role in South Korea's gold-winning men's kayak four crew.
The two runner-up finishes brought South Korea's sprint canoeing tally at the Games to two gold medals and two silvers. The country's golds came in the men's kayak four 500 meters and the men's kayak double 500 meters.
The final-day results underlined the depth of South Korea's men's kayak squad, with both Jang and Choi reaching the podium in individual or mixed events after winning a team title earlier in the program. For each athlete, Saturday's silver added an individual or mixed-event result to the gold already earned in the four-person boat, giving both competitors two medals at these Games. The narrow margins in the men's single also highlighted the closely contested nature of the race, as fewer than eight-tenths of a second separated the first three finishers.