Heo Soo-bong (Hyundai Capital) and Kang So-hwi (Korea Expressway Corporation), the leading figures of the men's and women's volleyball teams, were at the center of the disaster at the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games held in 2023.
The two players competed as strikers for the national team and fought hard, but were unable to prevent a shocking no-medal slump and bowed their heads.
The two players, who returned to the Asian Games after three years, are determined to wash away their pain and lead the revival of Korean volleyball.
Heo Soo-bong will be the main defender of the men's volleyball team at the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games, and Kang So-hwi will be the captain and key striker of the women's volleyball team.
Outside heater Heo Soo-bong is a striker representing Korean men's volleyball.
Heo Soo-bong, who debuted on the professional stage immediately after graduating from high school in 2016, established himself as a key player on the team in the 2018-2019 season, and wore the Taegeuk symbol for the first time in 2019 while serving in the Armed Forces Athletic Corps.
He mainly played as an aposite spiker, but completely switched to an outside hitter in the 2023-2024 season.
Heo Soo-bong, who served as the national team's negative spiker during the Hangzhou tournament, will roam the court as an outside hitter in this tournament.
In fact, Heo Soo-bong's participation in the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games was unclear.
This is because the pain from the back injury persisted to the point where he was unable to participate in the 2026 Asian Volleyball Confederation (AVC) Cup Men's Tournament and the 2026 East Asian Championships.
Heo Soo-bong joined the national team through an evaluation match against Bahrain last month, and recently played in the 2026 Asian Men's Volleyball Championships, dispelling concerns around him by leading Korea to the semifinals.
In particular, in the quarterfinals against China, he led the attack at every important moment and lived up to expectations by scoring 21 points, the joint most in the team.
Heo Soo-bong should play the role of the national team's main gun along with Apogee spiker Lim Dong-hyuk (Korean Air) at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games.
The pride of Korean men's volleyball hangs on Heo Soo-bong's shoulders.
Expectations are also high on the performance of Kang So-hwi, the women's national team captain and leading striker.
The women's national team is experiencing difficulties following the retirement of volleyball queen Kim Yeon-kyung.
In particular, most of the players who led the golden generation gave up their Taegeuk badges, and with no players appearing to fill the vacant positions, the team is evaluated to have lost its international competitiveness.
Kang So-hwi is currently one of the few native strikers in Korean women's volleyball who is competitive on the international stage.
The reason he wore the captain's armband in this tournament is because his role is important.
So-Hwi Kang, who entered professional volleyball in the 2015-2016 season, received the Rookie of the Year award in his debut season, and has since demonstrated his presence on the professional stage by winning Best 7 twice and the KOVO Cup Most Valuable Player Award (MVP) three times.
However, I don’t have particularly good memories from international competitions.
He competed in the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics world qualifiers, but was disqualified from the final selection process for the main competition.
He was unable to compete in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics held in 2021 due to an ankle injury.
The Hangzhou Asian Games bowed out due to a no-medal disaster, and the 2024 Paris Olympics were eliminated in the preliminaries.
Kang So-hwi also played with a thigh injury at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games.
Due to a chronic thigh injury, he stayed on the bench at the last East Asian Championships and focused on recovery.
Even after returning to the Asian Championships, he was unable to display his previous skills.
He had an attack success rate of only 20.8% in the group stage match against Japan at the Asian Championships, and also performed poorly in the quarterfinals against Thailand with an attack efficiency of 14.71%.
However, Kang So-hwi focused on recovering her condition after finishing the competition, and it was reported that her physical condition has recovered significantly recently.
I am determined to break the jinx of international competitions by being in top physical condition.
The women's volleyball team, which entered Nagoya, Japan on the 13th, will play its first match against Hong Kong in Group D on the 16th.
The men's national team will move to Nagoya on the 24th and play its first match against the Philippines in Group D on the 27th.
