Men's 400m relay team overturns disqualification decision on appeal and advances to finals

Kim Si-on and Namadi Joel Jin are disqualified for leaving the baton handover area... Decision overturned on appeal

Director Ha Kyung-soo “Submission of evidence including video… dramatic relief”

(Nagoya = Yonhap News) Reporter Kyung-yoon Kim = The men's 400m relay team, which had been disqualified in the preliminaries, appealed, overturned the decision and dramatically advanced to the finals.

Ha Kyung-soo, coach of the men's sprint team, said in a phone call with Yonhap News on the 28th, "Immediately after the decision, we submitted all of the videos we had and immediately appealed that we were not subject to disqualification, and the organizers accepted our claim. We will advance to the finals tomorrow."

Coach Ha said, "The referee ruled that the baton touch range was exceeded, but when we saw it, it was not the case. We were confident that we were not subject to disqualification, but there were not many cases where appeal applications were overturned in international sports such as the Olympics and Asian Games, so we did not have high hopes that we would be able to get relief, but we are glad that we got a good result."

The men's relay team, consisting of Kim Si-on (Armed Forces Athletic Corps), Namadi Joel-jin (Yecheon County Office), Lee Jae-seong (Jeonnam Gwangju City Hall), and Viwesa Daniel Kasama (Ansan City Hall), was disqualified from the second group of the men's 400m relay preliminaries at the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games held at the Mizuho Park Athletic Stadium in Nagoya, Japan on the 27th.

The national team ranked 4th in the group, following Japan (38.71), Thailand (38.89), and Oman (38.99), with a record of 39.33 seconds, and ranked 7th out of 12 participating teams, appearing to advance to the finals where 8 teams will advance.

However, the referee ruled that the players had crossed the baton touch zone when leading from 1st runner Kim Si-on to 2nd runner Namadi Joel-Jin and disqualified them.

The national team immediately appealed and the decision was overturned, allowing them to continue their medal challenge.

Korea is aiming for a medal in the men's 400m relay with Namadi Joel-Jin and Viwesa, who came in 4th and 5th in the men's 100m at this competition.

The finals will be held at the same location on the night of the 28th, with Korea, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Oman, China, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, and Saudi Arabia competing.

Meanwhile, Seo Ji-hyeon (Jincheon County Office), Kim Seo-yoon (Changwon City Hall), Kim Myeong-ji (Jeongseon County Office), and Kim Ju-ha (Siheung City Hall), who participated in Group 2 of the women's 400m relay preliminaries, ranked 5th in their group and 8th overall with a time of 44.94 seconds and advanced to the finals.

Jo Ha-rim (Mungyeong City Hall), who participated in the women's 3,000m steeplechase final, placed 8th out of 8 competitors with a time of 10 minutes 26.06 seconds.