Lee Seung-soo, a promising table tennis star, wins bronze medal in men's singles at the Dakar Youth Olympics

Korean table tennis star Seung-su Lee (Daejeon Dongsan Middle School) won a bronze medal in the table tennis men's singles at the 2026 Dakar Summer Youth Olympics.

Seungsoo Lee defeated Ricky Ho (Hong Kong) with a game score of 4-2 (11-8 11-8 11-5 8-11 15-17 15-13) in the men's singles bronze medal match held at the Expo Center in Dakar, Senegal on the 6th (Korean time).

It has been 16 years since the inaugural tournament in Singapore in 2010 that Korean table tennis won a medal at the Summer Youth Olympics.

At that time, Korea won a silver medal in the mixed team event (Kim Dong-hyun and Yang Ha-eun) and a bronze medal in the women's singles event (Yang Ha-eun), but failed to add medals in the two competitions held thereafter.

Seungsoo Lee, who passed the 3rd group of the preliminaries in first place, defeated Noah Wittel (France) 4-3 in the round of 16 and Goerkem Ozal (Turkiye) 4-1 in the quarterfinals.

In the semifinals, he lost 2-4 to Ryusei Kawakami (Japan). Kawakami won the gold medal by defeating Emmanuel Otalvaro (Colombia) 4-2 in the final.

Ye-rim Heo (Hwaseong Urban Development Corporation), who participated in the women's singles, passed the 7th group of the preliminary round in first place, but lost to Katazina Raikowska (Poland) 2-4 (7-11 11-2 11-8 5-11 10-12 8-11) in the round of 16.

The pair of Seung-soo Lee and Ye-rim Heo advanced to the quarterfinals in the mixed doubles, but failed to win a medal as they lost to the pair of Lin Chin-ting and Chen Min-xin (Taiwan).

In the mixed doubles, the pair of Kawakami and Miku Matsushima (Japan) won. Kawakami won two awards.