Korea's first skateboarding gold medal at the Asian Games... Kang Jun-i beats Japan and takes the top spot

(Tokoname [Japan] = Yonhap News) Reporter Oh Myeong-eon = Korea's national skateboarding team member Kang Jun-i (17, Seoul Yeongdeungpo High School) defeated skateboarders from Japan, a powerhouse in skateboarding, on the Asian Games stage and won the first gold medal in Korean history.

In the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games Skateboarding Men's Street Finals held at the Aichi Sky Expo Hall in Aichi Prefecture, Japan on the 27th, Kang Jun-i took first place with a final total of 180.85 points and stood at the highest point of the podium.

This is the first time, for both men and women, that a Korean athlete has won a gold medal in this event since the 2018 Jakarta/Palembang Games, when skateboarding was first adopted as an official event at the Asian Games.

Until now, Korean skateboarding's best performance at the Asian Games was the men's street bronze medal won by Eun Joo-won in the 2018 competition.

In particular, Kang Joon-i's gold medal is even more meaningful as he beat all of the world-class athletes from the host country, Japan.

Skateboard Street showcases skills in an arena modeled after street structures such as stairs, railings, and benches.

Scoring is based on a score out of 100 for the 'Run', which involves freely navigating the course for 45 seconds, and the 'Trick' score, which shows a single, difficult technique, and then the ranking is determined by adding the total score out of 200.

Kang Joon's final match that day was a dramatic match of crisis and overcoming.

He got off to a good start with a score of 84.83 in the first period of the run session, but fell at the end of the second period and swallowed his disappointment with only 69.79 points.

However, in the third period that followed, he drove so perfectly and without mistakes that even he himself was surprised.

Kang Jun-i, who scored a high score of 88.45 points, clearly took the lead by passing the run category in first place overall.

In the trick session that followed, they faced a crisis, perhaps due to the pressure of the big stage.

Kang Joon attempted the 'Nally 270 Heelflip Lipslide', a difficult technique he had ambitiously prepared, but fell in succession in the second period as well as in the first period, scoring only 0.00 points.

Kang Jun, who came out of the court immediately after the second period, shed tears that he had been holding back.

But I didn't give up. Despite two painful failures, Kangjun once again used the same technique to win the game in the third period.

He perfectly succeeded in the difficult complex technique of kicking up the front of the board, jumping, rotating the board with his heels in the air, and simultaneously turning his body 270 degrees and sliding down while holding the center of the board on the railing.

Kang Joon, who burst into tears of joy as if he sensed victory as soon as he landed, scored a whopping 92.40 points, putting a clear wedge in the win.

Kang Jun-i, who recorded a final total of 180.85 points, easily beat Japan's Doa Sasaki (172.35 points), who won the silver medal.

The bronze medal also went to Japan's Kinu Onodera, who scored 168.11 points.

Kang Jun-i, who overcame the pressure at a young age and showed concentration, overwhelmed the Japanese skaters on his home court and won the first and most valuable gold medal for Korean skateboarding.