Kim Young-beom sets another record, takes gold in men's 50-meter freestyle

Kim Young-beom raced to the men's 50-meter freestyle swimming gold medal in record-breaking style at the Asian Games Aichi-Nagoya 2026 on Monday.

The 20-year-old won the competition's shortest swimming event with a new Asian Games record time of 21.66 seconds at Tokyo Aquatics Centre in the Japanese capital.

In the heats held earlier that day, Kim had set an Asian Games record with 21.71 seconds, bettering the previous record of 21.72 seconds set by fellow Korean Ji Yu-chan when he won the 2023 Asiad gold.

Just hours later, Kim broke his own mark by 0.05 second to deliver Korea its first swimming gold of this year's Asian Games.

Kim had earlier won silver in the 100-meter freestyle Sunday.

Ji got the bronze medal this time in 21.94 seconds, with Ho Ian Yentou of Hong Kong taking silver in 21.76 seconds.

Kim had a reaction time of 0.66 seconds, tied with two others for the fourth-fastest in the 10-man final. But he beat everyone to the final pad with a mad dash down the stretch.

The men's 50-meter freestyle was added to the Asian Games in 1990. Coupled with Ji's win in 2023, Kim's title gives Korea back-to-back gold medals for the first time.

Yonhap