Korea secures No.1 spot at Universiade for 1st time

By Nam Hyun-woo

GWANGJU — Korea won the No.1 spot in the medals table at the 2015 Gwangju Universiade for the first time in the country’s history.

As of 2 p.m., Monday, the country leads the way with 47 gold medals, 32 silver and 29 bronze. Russia is in second place with 34 gold, 39 silver and 49 bronze, followed by China with 34 gold, 22 silver and 16 bronze.

This is Korea’s second time to clinch No. 1 spot at an international sports event, following its first-place finish at the 2007 Winter Universiade in Torino, Italy. As for an international summer sports events, the Gwangju Universiade marks Korea’s best performance.

The winning streak reached its height Sunday as Korea bagged nine gold medals. Along with Korea’s first Universiade gold in the rhythmic gymnastics individual all-around event by Son Yeon-jae, Korea’s young tennis phenomenon Chung Hyeon collected two gold medals and the badminton players took home a whopping five gold medals. Son added two gold medals, Monday.

“As of Monday, Korea secured No. 1 spot with 47 gold medals, recording its best result in the country’s Universiade history,” said You Byong-jin, the head of the Korean delegation to the Gwangju Games.

“All of our athletes showed solid performances. Especially the judokas performed better than expected,” he said. In judo, Korea collected 8 gold, surpassing its initial target of five.

Though Korea collected many medals in its traditionally strong sports, Korean athletes again showed weakness in athletics, swimming and gymnastics, except for Son.

“I felt that local federations for basic sports should make more efforts,” You said, adding that a number of officials from foreign delegations praised Gwangju Universiade organizers for managing the event successfully.

In the Universiade, the medals standing is determined by the number of gold each country wins.

Russia outnumbers Korea in the total number of medals — Russia has 116 medals, while Korea collected 103 as of 3:00 p.m. Monday — but Korea retains its pole position, because not only the organizers, but also the International University Sports Federation, which sanctions the student games, prioritizes the value of gold medals.

For Korean athletes, the Gwangju Universiade serves as a testing ground for the 2016 Rio Olympics.

“One of the biggest results of Korea’s top-place finish is that our university athletes earned confidence in their performances and that will also boost their performances at the Rio Games,” said an official at the Korean Olympic Committee.