It is unclear whether Korea will achieve its goal of 40 Asian Games gold medals, and concerns are raised about its lowest performance since 1982.

(Nagoya = Yonhap News) Reporter Kyung-yoon Kim = There is a growing possibility that the Korean team participating in the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games will finish the Games with the fewest gold medals since the 1982 New Delhi Games.

As of September 30, Korea had won 24 gold medals, 30 silver medals, and 49 bronze medals.

It ranks third with a large gap between China (151 gold medals, 67 silver medals, and 59 bronze medals) and Japan (50 gold medals, 77 silver medals, and 73 bronze medals).

The Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games will end on the 5th, and Korea will aim for gold medals in archery, judo, taekwondo, e-sports, golf, sport climbing, and men's soccer during the remaining period.

Among these, there can be 4 to 6 gold medals in archery, 1 to 3 gold medals in judo, 3 to 5 gold medals in taekwondo, and 1 gold medal each in e-sports, golf, sport climbing, and men's soccer.

Korea is expected to win about 10 to 15 additional gold medals due to its strength, and in this case, it may not be able to win the original goal of 40 gold medals.

If the national team does not win 40 gold medals, it will have its worst performance since the 1982 New Delhi Games.

Korea won 28 gold medals, 28 silver medals, and 37 bronze medals at the New Delhi Games, and has won more than 50 gold medals in each competition, from the 1986 Seoul Games (93 gold, 55 silver, and 76 bronze medals) held at home to the 2014 Incheon Games (79 gold, 70 silver, and 79 bronze medals). brought it

Korea beat Japan and took second place overall in seven of the eight Asian Games from the Seoul Games to the Incheon Games.

However, Korea's performance began to decline from the 2018 Jakarta-Palembang Games.

In that competition, it won 49 gold medals, 58 silver medals, and 70 bronze medals, falling to third place, with less than 50 gold medals for the first time since the 1982 New Delhi Games.

At the 2022 Hangzhou Games held in 2023, they received an even poorer report card with 42 gold medals, 59 silver medals, 89 bronze medals, and 3rd place.

At that time, Korea was 10 gold medals behind second place Japan (52 gold medals, 67 silver medals, 69 bronze medals).

The gap with Japan is expected to be much larger in this competition.

As of September 30th, there is a gap of 26 gold medals, and it could widen to more than 30 in the remaining schedule.

The reason Korea is showing increasingly poor performance in the Asian Games is because of the rapid growth of its competitors, China and Japan.

China has developed world-class athletes in a variety of sports, ranking second and Japan third in the overall rankings at the 2022 Paris Olympics.

Korea also performed well at the Paris Olympics, winning 13 gold medals and ranking 8th overall, but the gold medals tended to be concentrated on a few sports, such as archery (5), shooting (3), and fencing (2).

The Korea Sports Council differentiates the level of support for core strategic events and non-strategic events, and this background may have influenced the performance of the Asian Games, which feature a variety of events.

Yoo Seung-min, president of the Korea Sports Council, said at a press conference on the 24th of last month, "At this competition, athletes in sports that have not been properly supported are showing their strength, such as Lee Jun-seok in tech ball winning the gold medal. Going forward, we will actively support more diverse sports. In addition, we are planning to expand the scope of the currently only five strategic sports (archery, shooting, fencing, swimming, and badminton)."