Korea breezes to five sailing medals at Games in Ningbo
![William McMillan of Thailand, Ikeda Kensei of Japan, Lee Tae-hoon of South Korea and Oh Elkan Reshawn of Singapore compete during the men's windsurfing iQFoil race at the 19th Asian Games in Ningbo, China on Saturday. [XINHUA]](https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/data/photo/2023/09/27/1b8cde8b-9241-40f6-8fb5-4411ff14c7e4.jpg)
William McMillan of Thailand, Ikeda Kensei of Japan, Lee Tae-hoon of South Korea and Oh Elkan Reshawn of Singapore compete during the men's windsurfing iQFoil race at the 19th Asian Games in Ningbo, China on Saturday. [XINHUA]
Korea bagged two sailing silvers with Lee Tae-hoon’s second-place finish in the men’s windsurfer iQFoil contest and Ha Jee-min’s in the men’s ILCA7 dinghy, pushing Korea’s total medal count in the sport to five by Wednesday.
Lee, 37, came behind China’s Bi Kun but ahead of Hong Kong’s Cheng Ching Yin after 18 total races. Ha, 34, lost to Singapore’s Jun Han Ryan Lo but bested India’s Vishnu Saravanan.
Korean sailor Lee Young-eun, 30, also notched a bronze medal in the women's IKA Formula Kite contest by the end of the sailing competition on Wednesday.
Sailing took place over six days at this year’s Asian Games. Sailors raced at the Ningbo Xiangshan (NBX) Sailing Centre in Ningbo, China, a port city in eastern China’s Zhejiang province.
Lee Tae-hoon’s silver medal finish marked his best performance in Asian Games history. He took bronze in the RS:X windsurfer contest at two earlier Asian Games, in 2018 and 2010.
Ha took gold in the men’s laser competition at the 2018 Games in Jakarta, Indonesia but laser — a different dinghy design — was not offered this year in Hangzhou, China.
Korea earlier locked down its first sailing medal of the Hangzhou Games — gold, from sailor Cho Won-woo, who breezed to first place in the men’s windsurfer RS:X contest, confidently defeating Thailand and India. Cho, 28, won all but one of the 14 total races in that event.
Korean sailors Kim Jia and Cho Sung-min then took bronze in the mixed 470 dinghy contest.
The dinghy duo came behind Japan and China, with Kim at the helm and Cho as crew, with a fourth-place finish in the final race but earning third overall in the cumulatively-scored sport.
With five medals — one gold, two silver and two bronze — this year, Korea beat its three-medal sailing finish at the last Asiad, when it scored one gold, one silver and one bronze.
BY MARY YANG [mary.yang@joongang.co.kr]
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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