Ban Hyo-jin and Park Ha-jun win bronze medal in 10m air rifle mixed event at World Championships

Ban Hyo-jin (Daegu Public Facilities Management Corporation) and Park Ha-jun (KT) jointly won a bronze medal in the mixed 10m air rifle event at the 2026 International Shooting Federation (ISSF) World Championships being held in Doha, Qatar.

Ban Hyo-jin, who qualified for the 2028 Los Angeles (LA) Olympic Games with a gold medal in the women's 10m air rifle individual event, also added a medal in the mixed event.

The pair of Ban Hyo-jin and Park Ha-jun scored 317.2 points together in the finals held on the 4th (local time) and advanced to the finals of the top four teams in first place with a total of 634.4 points.

The pair of Kwon Eun-ji (Uljin County Office) and Kang Jun-ki (Seosan City Hall) finished in 8th place with a total of 631.9 points and missed the finals.

After scoring 104.2 points in the first series of the finals, the Korean team scored 105.5 points, the highest score of any participating team, in the second series, beating China's second team and rising to second place.

However, they were upset again in the final series and finished the tournament in 3rd place with a total of 440.1 points, 0.8 points behind the 2nd Chinese team (440.9 points).

The championship was won by the Chinese team, which scored 506.1 points.

In the finals, Ban Hyo-jin scored 220.7 points and Park Ha-jun scored 219.4 points.

They stood on the podium together following the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games, where they jointly won a silver medal.

After the game, Ha-Jun Park expressed his thoughts, saying, "I shot harder than in the individual game, thinking that Hyo-jin was a good shooter, so I just had to do well," and Hyo-jin Ban responded, "My brother shot well, so I shot with peace of mind."

Since there is no separate quota for mixed gender competition at the Olympics, Korea must secure a quota for men's air rifle in order for them to work together again on the LA stage.

Korea, which participated in the men's 25m rapid fire pistol team event, unfortunately placed 4th with a 1 point difference.

Lee Geon-hyuk, who advanced to the finals in 8th place by scoring a total of 582 points (25 out of 10) in the individual preliminaries, finished the competition in 8th place and postponed obtaining an Olympic quota to the next competition.

Hong Seok-jin and Lee Jae-gyun (KB Kookmin Bank), who participated together, ranked 24th (577 points) and 30th (574 points), respectively.

Paris Olympic gold medalists Yang Ji-in (Woori Bank) and Oh Ye-jin (IBK Industrial Bank of Korea) and Asian Games gold medalist Chu Eun (Imsil County Office) will participate in the 10m air pistol women's division held on the 5th.

In the men's division, Choi Bo-ram, So Seung-seop (Seosan City Hall) and Park Jeong-i (Armed Forces Athletic Corps) will go on a medal hunt.