Korea dominates semifinal to lock in gold or silver in rugby sevens

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Korea dominates semifinal to lock in gold or silver in rugby sevens

Published: 26 Sep. 2023, 13:45 Updated: 26 Sep. 2023, 23:01

JIM BULLEY
jim.bulley@joongang.co.kr

Korea's Jang Yong-heung, center, drives through the Chinese line during a rugby sevens semifinal at the 19th Asian Games at Hangzhou Teachers' University in Hangzhou, China on Tuesday. [YONHAP]

Korea is guaranteed to take either gold or silver in the men’s rugby seven tournament at the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou after sailing past china with a big 36-7 win in the semifinals on Tuesday morning.

Korea’s Chang Yong-heung, Jeong Yeon-sik and Jang Jeong-min led the onslaut with two tries apiece, with Kim Nam-uk converting three attempts to total 36 points.

Korean rugby sevens team dominate Asian Games opener

Korea dominated throughout the group stage at the Games, beating Chinese Taipei 22-0 and the OCA Independent Athlete team 22-7 to top Pool B. Moving into the knockout stage, Korea made short work of Malaysia, 26-5, yesterday before coming up against China in the semifinals.

Rugby sevens is one of the three forms of rugby, alongside rugby union — as seen in the Rugby World Cup — and the less common rugby league. Sevens is a scaled-down form of rugby union and is played on the same size field, but with much faster gameplay.

Although not widely considered a rugby-playing country, Korea has always been one of the strongest countries in Asia and has never failed to medal at the Asian Games.

Korea took gold at the 1998 and 2002 Asian Games — it actually took two golds at both tournaments because rugby union was also included as a separate event — winning silver in 2006 and bronze at the last three tournaments.

Japan and Hong Kong are the two other Asian powerhouses, alternating gold and silver over the last three tournaments. But this year the bracket meant that Japan and Hong Kong met in the semifinals, with Hong Kong headed to the final and Japan to the bronze medal match.

That bracket allows Korea to return to the top two for the first time since 2006. As of press time, Korea and Hong Kong were scheduled to face off in the final on Tuesday evening.

BY JIM BULLEY [jim.bulley@joongang.co.kr]