Shooters Hyojin Ban and Hojun Park Team Up for Asian Games Silver ... "China Remains Unbeatable"

Second Place for Korea in the 10m Air Rifle Mixed Team at Aichi-Nagoya Games

Korea's First Gold in Shooting Still Awaits

Wang Zifei and Sheng Lihao Win with New World Record

Hyojin Ban (Daegu Public Facilities Management Corporation) and Hojun Park (KT) won the silver medal for Korea in the 10m air rifle mixed team event at the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games.

On September 22, at the Aichi Prefectural Comprehensive Shooting Range in Japan, Ban and Park scored 252.6 points and 250.3 points respectively in the finals, combining for a total of 502.9 points. Korea finished second, trailing China—represented by Wang Zifei and Sheng Lihao—who took gold with a score of 507.1 points. Japan placed third with 439.7 points, and India came in fourth with 376.3 points.

Ban Hyojin, who previously won a bronze medal in the women’s individual event at this competition, claimed her second medal of her first-ever Asian Games. Park Hojun, who earned a bronze in the men’s team event the previous day, also secured his second medal of the Games and the fifth Asian Games medal of his career.

Hojun Park (right) and Hyojin Ban are aiming at the target in the finals of the 10m Air Rifle Mixed Team event at the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games, held on the 22nd at the Aichi Prefectural Comprehensive Shooting Range in Japan. Toyota=Photo by Yonhap News

Korea entered the finals as the third-ranked team from the preliminary round and started their first series with a combined 104.9 points, placing second behind China. After the second series, they recorded 209.2 points, falling to third by just 0.2 points behind Japan (209.4 points). When each athlete had fired 15 shots, Korea stood in third place with 314.3 points, behind China (315.7 points) and Japan (314.9 points).

Korea completed the first single-shot segment with 378.1 points, maintaining third place by a slim margin of 0.1 point behind Japan (378.2 points). India, with a total of 376.3 points, was eliminated first, after which Korea engaged in an intense battle with Japan for second place.

Korea took a slight lead after the first shot of the next segment, scoring 399.0 points to Japan’s 398.8—just 0.2 points ahead. However, after the second shot, Korea fell behind with 418.9 points, trailing Japan (419.7 points) by 0.8 points. The order changed when Ban scored 10.0 points and Park 9.9 points.

Korea overtook Japan in the final shot. Ban registered a 10.3, and Park a 10.9, while Japan’s Misaki Novata scored 10.5 but Naoki Hanakawa only managed 9.5 points. Korea finished with 440.1 points, coming from behind to beat Japan by 0.4 points.

Korea entered the gold medal match 3.5 points behind China but was unable to close the gap, ultimately taking silver. China won gold by breaking the previous world record held by Norway (506.7 points, set in Yerevan, Armenia in March) by 0.4 points, finishing with 507.1 points.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.