Korean wrestling finishes with one bronze medal at the 2026 Asian Games... Worst performance ever

(Nagoya = Yonhap News) Reporter Kyung-yoon Kim = Korean wrestling, once called the most powerful sport, finished the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games with only one bronze medal.

The wrestling team failed to win a single medal on the last day of the competition held at the Inae Sports Center in Nagoya, Japan on the 3rd.

Park Seo-young in the women's freestyle 53kg class advanced to the bronze medal match after going through the repechage match, but failed to win a medal as she lost 0-7 to Mongolia's Bayangmunkh Otgontuya.

Among the Korean national team players in this competition, the only player to reach the podium was Kim Min-seok (Suwon City Hall, bronze medal), a veteran in the men's Greco-Roman 130kg class.

One bronze medal is the worst performance ever.

Korean wrestling won a total of 12 medals, including 3 gold medals, at the 2014 Incheon Asian Games, and brought a total of 8 medals, including 2 gold medals, at the 2018 Jakarta-Palembang Asian Games.

However, Korean wrestling began to collapse due to severe factional fights and repeated failures to discover, change generations, and foster leaders, and only won two bronze medals at the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games, suffering the humiliation of 'no silver' for the first time in 57 years since the 1966 Bangkok Games.

Korean wrestling pledged to do well ahead of this tournament, saying there would be no place to retreat anymore.

Last month, national team coach Ahn Han-bong shed tears at the media day and appealed to the players present, saying, "Please let me know that Korean wrestling is not dead."

Kim Ik-heon, president of the Korea Wrestling Association, also expressed his introspection, saying, "Our wrestlers were obsessed with the fight to protect their vested interests, our leaders responded laxly, and our players were mentally broken."

In addition, the goal for this competition was presented as 1 gold medal, 1 silver medal, and 6 bronze medals.

But the results were disastrous.

Jeong Han-jae (Suwon City Hall), a men's Greco-Roman 67kg class who was considered a gold medal candidate, did not even make it to the medal match, and Noh Young-hoon (Ulsan Metropolitan City Nam-gu Office), who was considered a dark horse, also did not come close to the medal match.

The true face of Korean wrestling, which cannot easily win even an Asian Games medal, let alone an Olympic medal, was clearly revealed.