Rifle shooter willing to trade 3 medals for 1 gold
Park Ha-jun of Korea leaves after finishing his attempt in the 10-meter air rifle mixed team event at the Asian Games at Fuyang Yinhu Sports Centre in Hangzhou, China, Sept. 26. Yonhap
After Korean rifle shooter Park Ha-jun clinched his third medal of the Asian Games here in China on Tuesday, his mixed team partner, Lee Eun-seo, shot him an envious look.
"I am so jealous," Lee said with a smile during a media scrum, after she and Park combined for the bronze medal in the 10-meter air rifle mixed team event in Hangzhou. This was Lee's first medal here.
Park, who had earlier won silver medals in the men's individual and team 10m air rifle events, had different thoughts in mind.
"If I could trade these three medals for one gold medal, I would," Park said, drawing laughter from a throng of reporters.
In a nail-biting bronze medal contest, Korea edged out India 20-18. In the medal contest, each shooter fired single shots, and the team with the higher combined score was awarded two points, while a tie was worth a point for each side.
Korea trailed 8-0 early and then faced a match point at 15-11. But Park and Lee battled back to knot the score at 15-15, and clinched the bronze medal in their 19th shots.
Lee Eun-seo, left, and Park Ha-jun of Korea celebrate after clinching the bronze medal in the 10-meter air rifle mixed team event at the Asian Games at Fuyang Yinhu Sports Centre in Hangzhou, China, Sept. 26. Yonhap
"I felt like my heart was going to explode," Lee said with a smile. "Toward the end, we put up good scores, and they matched everything we did. By that point, I decided I'd just enjoy the competition."
Lee added she never lost faith even after her team trailed big early.
"We weren't shooting that poorly," Lee said. "We knew we had a lot of time to make up the ground. We felt we could catch India if we kept doing what we're supposed to do."
Korea ended up in one of the two bronze medal matches after finishing third in the qualification phase with 629.6 points. The top two qualifiers, China and Uzbekistan, advanced to the gold medal match. China prevailed handily, 16-2,
Park said Korea could have given China a better fight in the final but added: "Uzbekistan had a better score in the qualification. So I think it's fair that we got the bronze. Hopefully, we'll have a chance to fight for the gold next time." (Yonhap)