Korea adds two silver medals in kayak sprint events at Asian Games

Korea added two silver medals in the men’s and mixed kayak sprint events at the Asian Games Aichi-Nagoya 2026 on Saturday, wrapping up its sprint canoeing campaign with two golds and two silvers.

With a time of 1:44.433, Jang Sang-won finished second in the men’s kayak single 500-meter final at Miyoshi Lake Canoe Course in Miyoshi, just east of the main host city of Nagoya, Japan.

He was just 0.791 seconds behind the winner, Shakhriyor Makhkamov of Uzbekistan, who finished in 1:43.642. Dmitriy Kholmogorov of Kazakhstan received bronze with 1:44.453.

Jang moved into first place after 250 meters (820.2 feet) with a race-best split of 48.77 seconds but could not maintain the lead for the remainder of the race.

It was his second medal at the Asian Games in Japan, following his gold medal in the men’s kayak four 500-meter event on Thursday.

In the mixed kayak double 500-meter final, Korea’s Choi Min-kyu and Seon Min-ju clocked 1:40.349, finishing 0.905 seconds behind China’s Li Chenhao and Zhang Luxi.

Japan’s Rin Fukuda and Akihiro Inoue won the bronze medal with 1:40.720.

Choi was also part of the gold-medal-winning team in the men’s kayak four 500-meter event.

The Korean duo were second behind the Kazakh team after the first 250 meters but failed to take the lead, while the Chinese team moved from fifth place to first.

Korea earlier won gold medals in both the men’s kayak four 500-meter and the men’s kayak double 500-meter events at the Games.

Yonhap