After sending the smallest number of athletes (144) to the Summer Olympics in 48 years, the South Korean team is racking up gold medals at the Paris 2024 Games.

Park Tae-joon (20-Kyunghee University), who competed in the men’s 58-kilogram taekwondo at the Paris Olympics, became the first Korean male taekwondo athlete to win an Olympic gold medal in 16 years on Sunday (local time), giving the Korean team its 12th gold medal at the Games.

Ahn Se-young (Samsung Life Insurance), who won her 11th gold medal in the women’s singles badminton event, has been publicly criticizing the Korean Badminton Association for its training process, injury treatment, and management of the national team, but the gold medal-winning taekwondo has quickly calmed the Korean team.

The team is one gold medal away from tying its all-time single Games record of 13, set at Beijing 2008 and London 2012.

This is more than double the original target of five gold medals.

With just four days to go before the Games conclude on Nov. 11, Korea will look to build on its momentum and add gold medals in taekwondo and modern pentathlon.

The country’s fiery, once-upon-a-time atmosphere will be utilized to continue its gold medal offensive into the final day of competition.

Initially, the KFA was only expecting to win gold in archery, the world’s strongest sport, and fencing, a proven progeny of recent Olympics.

However, the “secret weapons” of each sport, who have a thousand years of international experience and a lot of determination, have made a splash in their Olympic debut, revitalizing the country’s crumbling elite sports.

The trio of Oh Ye-jin (IBK), “high school sharpshooter” Ban Hyo-jin (Daegu Chego), and Yang Ji-in (Korea Gymnastics University), who won three gold medals in shooting, are young athletes in their late teens and early 20s who were considered pre-Olympic gold medal favorites, but turned their dreams into reality in Paris and ignited the Korean team’s medal run.

Park Tae-joon of Taekwondo, who had been making waves on the international scene for two years, finally solved the men’s taekwondo team’s long-standing problem with a dominant performance on the main stage after punching his ticket to Paris over four-year-old “nemesis” Jang Jun (Korea Gas Corp.), who was undefeated in six bouts.

Three gold medals in shooting and a gold in taekwondo were difficult for federations and federations to claim as clear-cut gold medals, but Young Gun’s fearlessness in Paris has created a new mythology.

South Korea’s gold medal streak gained further momentum when archery surpassed its target of three and reached a new milestone of five gold medals.

With 27 medals – 12 gold, eight silver and seven bronze – Korea has already surpassed Rio de Janeiro 2016 (21) and Tokyo 2020 (20) in total medal tally.

The Taegeuk Warriors are now preparing for a fireworks spurt to break the previous record of 33 medals (12 gold, 10 silver, 11 bronze) set at the 1988 Seoul Games. 파워볼실시간