South Korean swimming hope Park Tae-hwan walks toward the locker rooms after finishing second in the men’s 400-meter freestyle final at the Olympic Games in London on Saturday. (London Olympic Joint Press Corps)
South Korea got off to a golden start Saturday, the first full day of competition in the London Olympics, through sharpshooter Jin Jong-oh who captured the country’s first gold medal of the Games.
But star swimmer Park Tae-hwan just barely won silver in the 400-meter freestyle after a disqualification, then reinstatement.
The men’s archery team, which set two world records on Friday, also suffered a setback, ending third in the team competition behind Italy and the United States.
But, it was all gold for Jin Jong-oh. According to news reports from London, the Korean shooter shot 100.2 points in the final of the men’s 10-meter air pistol and struck gold with a total of 688.2 points, which included a qualification score of 588.
It was his second straight Olympic gold medal. He won in the 50-meter pistol and the silver medal in 10-meter air pistol in Beijing four years ago. Jin had ranked fifth in 10-meter air pistol in Athens in 2004, his Olympic debut.
The 32-year-old entered the final two points clear of China’s favorite Pang Wei. He continued to stretch his lead before faltering a bit with a low run of scores of 9.3, 9.0, 9.4 and 9.7.
Italy’s Luca Tesconi came back into contention as Pang faded, but he was unable to close the gap and ended up 2.4 points behind the champion. Serbia’s Andrija Zlatic took bronze.
While Jin sounded the victory, Park Tae-hwan had a rollercoaster day marked by a disqualification for a false start in the heats, an appeal by South Korea and finally reinstatement.
In the morning, he posted the fastest time in his heat at 3 minutes and 46.68 seconds, only to learn moments later that he’d been disqualified for an apparent false start.
South Korean officials protested, but the technical commission at the FINA, the sport’s global governing body, turned it down. Then they took it to a jury of appeal, which reinstated Park.
After the chaos, Park won the silver, his second Olympic medal in the event after Beijing in 2008.
His rival, Sun Yang of China, began to outpace Park on the last lap, coming in first with 3:40.14, and dethroned the defending champion who touched the pad at 3:42.06.
“It was a tough day mentally; so much happened in the course of a single day,” Park told Korean reporters in London, “I think that an Olympic silver is still very valuable.”
South Korea’s men archers fell to the U.S. 219-224 in the semifinal of team competition and had to beat Mexico to win the bronze.
In the last fourth end of the competition, Im Dong-hyun, Oh Jin-hyek and Kim Bub-min shot 55 points, four points less than the U.S. team. In the bronze medal match, Korea defeated Mexico 224-219.
Foil fencer Nam Hyun-hee failed to win her first Olympic gold as she lost to Valentina Vezzali of Italy in the semifinal. Vezzali went on to win bronze. The rivals clashed in Beijing four years ago in the final, where the Italian took the gold.
Gold and silver medals in women’s foil individual went to Elisa Di Francisca and Arianna Errigo, respectively, both of Italy.
Elsewhere, South Korea beat Spain 31-27 in Group B of women’s handball.
South Korea had hopes of securing up to five gold medals on Saturday alone, and its stated goal of winning 10 gold medals has become more distant.
China garnered four gold and two bronze medals from shooting, weightlifting and swimming to top the medals table.
By Chun Sung-woo (
swchun@heraldcorp.com)
