South Korea collected two golds, one silver and one bronze in taekwondo poomsae competition at the 18th Asian Games in Indonesia on Sunday.
Poomsae, which requires taekwondo practitioners to demonstrate attacking and defensive moves of the Korean martial art, was an official Asian Games medal discipline for the first time. Four gold medals were up for grab at this year's Asian Games.
With nearly 1,000 spectators, including Indonesian President Joko Widodo, South Korean Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon and World Taekwondo President Choue Chung-won, at Jakarta Convention Center (JCC) Plenary Hall, South Korea's gold medal run started with Kang Min-sung, who topped the men's individual poomsae after beating Koorosh Bakhtiyar of Iran with a final score of 8.81-8.73.
It was South Korea's first gold medal at this year's Asian Games.
South Korea claimed its second gold medal in the men's team poomsae event. The men's team of Han Yeong-hun, Kang Wan-jin and Kim Seon-ho defeated China with a final score of 8.48-8.02.
The women's poomsae team of Gwak Yeo-won, Choi Dong-ah and Park Jae-eun then followed with silver medal after losing to Thailand 8.21 to 8.20.
Earlier, Yun Ji-hye earned a bronze medal in the women's individual poomsae. She lost to Defia Rosmaniar of Indonesia in the semifinal and settled for bronze.
In the poomsae competition, the average score of two poomsae sets determines the winner. Each set is evaluated for the accuracy and presentation of the contestant's performance.
In the men's and the women's individual finals, contestants have to perform one set of recognized poomsae and one set of new poomsae.
Kang earned 8.78 out of 10 points by performing "pyongwon" poomsae in his first set and collected 8.84 points from "nareusya" poomsae in his second set to defeat Bakhtiyar to claim the gold.
For the team event final, each team has to perform the sets of new and freestyle poomsae with background music.
The men's team performed "himchari" to get 8.76 points, 0.24 points more than China, in the first set. South Korea then easily beat China in freestyle, collecting 8.2 points. China only had 7.52 in its second set.
The women's team displayed "saebyeol" for its new poomsae set, but earned 8.6 points, 0.1 points behind Thailand. The team earned 7.8 points in freestyle, 0.1 point more than Thailand, but it wasn't enough for gold. (Yonhap)