South edges out North to win dragon boat bronze

The South Korean women’s dragon boat team secured a bronze medal in the 1000-meter grand final at the Hangzhou Asian Games on Friday, winning the country’s only medal in the sport on the last day of the dragon boat schedule.

China finished the 1000-meter race first with a time of 4 minutes and 51.448 seconds to win gold and Indonesia came in second in 4 minutes and 55.385 seconds to claim silver.

South Korea took bronze after coming in at 4 minutes and 55.668 seconds, surpassing North Korea by 0.833 seconds.

Dragon boat racing is a water sports in which a team consisting of up to 16 people sit in pairs and paddle to compete in a race over certain distances.

Six countries — South Korea, North Korea, China, Indonesia, Thailand and Myanmar — with 14 members on each team competed in the final at Wenzhou Dragon Boat Centre in Wenzhou, China.

Dragon boat first debuted as an official sport at the Asian Games in 2010, but it was excluded in the 2014 Asiad and included again in the 2018 tournament.

This year is the second time that South Korea has medaled in dragon boat at the Asiad, having secured bronze in the men's 1000-meter final in 2010.

Team Korea — a combined team of South Korea and North Korea that competed in the 2018 Asian Games — won one gold and two bronze medals in dragon boat at the 2018 Asiad.

BY PAIK JI-HWAN [paik.jihwan@joongang.co.kr]