'0.255-second gap' Surpassed by China! Cho Kwang-hee's 'Third Time's the Charm,' Men's Kayak Four-Person Event Wins Historic First Gold... South Korea Secures 9th Gold Medal [Aichi Nagoya AG]

*This content was translated by AI.

0.255 seconds separated gold from silver. The South Korean men's canoe team shed the disappointment of back-to-back silver medals and finally stood atop the Asian Games podium.

Cho Kwang-hee (33), Kim Hyo-bin (25, Ulsan Metropolitan City Office), Jang Sang-won (33, Incheon Yeonsu-gu Office), and Choi Min-kyu (34, Korea Sports Promotion Foundation) competed for South Korea. On the 24th, at the canoe sprint course on Lake Miyoshi in Aichi Prefecture, Japan, they recorded a time of 1 minute 22.587 seconds in the men's kayak four-person 500m final at the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games, crossing the finish line first.

Second-place China finished with a time of 1 minute 22.842. South Korea was faster by just 0.255 seconds. Host nation Japan took the bronze medal with a time of 1 minute 25.909. This is South Korea's first gold medal in canoeing at this tournament and the ninth gold medal for the entire South Korean delegation.

South Korea took the lead from the start of the race. After crossing the 250m mark first with a time of 40.44 seconds, they maintained their speed and shook off China's pursuit to secure the gold medal. In the preliminary round the day before, South Korea had already posted the best overall time of 1 minute 25.383 seconds to advance directly to the final, and in the final, they improved their own record by an additional 2.796 seconds.

This is the first time the South Korean men's kayak four-person 500m team has claimed the Asian Games title. In the previous two tournaments, they consecutively won silver medals. At the 2018 Jakarta-Palembang Games, they finished as runners-up, trailing Kazakhstan by 1.110 seconds, and at the 2022 Hangzhou Games, China won with a time of 1 minute 23.859 seconds, leaving South Korea in second place with a time of 1 minute 25.006 seconds.

Especially for Cho Kwang-hee, this gold medal came after 'three attempts.' Having experienced silver medals twice before, Cho finally crossed the finish line first to fulfill a long-held dream. It is also his first Asian Games gold medal in eight years personally. Cho had previously won consecutive titles in the kayak single 200m event at the 2014 Incheon and 2018 Jakarta-Palembang Games. At the Hangzhou Games, his main event, the 200m, was excluded, so he won silver medals in both the kayak double and four-person 500m events. With this victory, he secured his third career Asian Games individual gold medal.

Canoe sprint is a discipline where the first athlete to cover a set distance on a straight course on calm water wins. In kayaking, athletes sit in a covered boat and paddle with double-bladed oars, while in canoeing, they kneel on one knee and use a single-bladed oar. The South Korean men's kayak four-person team changed the owner of Asian supremacy by a mere 0.255-second margin.

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*This content was translated by AI.