Korea win 10 medals in first few days of Paris Paralympics

There may have only been three days of action so far at the 2024 Paris Paralympic Games, but Team Korea have already brought their medal count up to double digits as of press time Sunday.

Korean table tennis players Yoon Ji-yu, left, and Seo Su-yeon compete in the women's doubles WD5 final against China at the 2024 Paris Paralympic Games in Paris on Friday. [YONHAP]

There may have only been three days of action so far at the 2024 Paris Paralympic Games, but Team Korea have already brought their medal count up to double digits as of press time Sunday.

Since the tournament’s opening ceremony in Paris on Wednesday, Korean athletes have collected medals across some familiar sports, including shooting and table tennis.

Shooting has been the sport at which Team Korea has seen the most success at this year’s Paralympics, with the country having claimed four medals — two gold, one silver and one bronze — so far.

More opportunities for medals await, with the shooting competition lasting through Sept. 8.

While many of Korea's top athletes are still yet to make an appearance at this year’s Games, here's a look at who has already left their mark for Korea at the tournament.

Shooting

Korea has already proved that their all-time No. 3 Paralympic medal ranking is not a fluke, with four medals under their belt already in Paris.

The tournament started with a gold medal from Jo Jeong-du in the P1 Men’s 10-meter air pistol SH1, a silver from Lee Yun-ri in the R2 Women’s 10-meter air rifle standing SH1 and a bronze from Seo Hun-tae in the R4 Mixed 10-meter air rifle standing SH2 on Friday, with Park Jin-ho then adding another gold in the R1 Men’s 10-meter air rifle standing SH1 the following day.

Park Jin-ho shoots in the R1 Men’s 10-meter air rifle standing SH1 at the 2024 Paris Paralympic Games in Paris on Saturday. [YONHAP]

Paralympic events are broken down into different sport classes, represented by a letter and number combination, and these act as athlete classifications. The letters generally represent the sport and the number represents the level of impairment. The lower the number, the more severe the level of impairment.

The SH1 shooting category differs slightly in pistol shooting, where it indicates an upper or lower limb impairment, and rifle shooting, where it indicated a lower limb impairment. SH2 is additionally used in rifle shooting to indicate an upper limb impairment.

This year’s medal count in shooting is also a turnaround from a steady decline for Korea at recent tournaments.

At the 2008 Beijing Games, Korea won four gold, three silver and two bronze medals, at the 2012 London Games, Korea won three gold and one bronze and at the 2016 Rio Games, Korea won two silver and five bronze medals.

The country saw a steeper drop in Tokyo, where it left with one silver and two bronze medals.

Table tennis Seo Su-yeon and Yoon Ji-yu failed to beat Liu Jing and Xue Juan of China in the women’s doubles WD5 final on Friday, but still took a silver medal.

Korean table tennis players Yoon Ji-yu, left, and Seo Su-yeon compete in the women's doubles WD5 final against China at the 2024 Paris Paralympic Games in Paris on Friday. [NEWS1]

Fellow duo Jang Yeong-jin and Park Sung-joo also went all the way to the men’s doubles MD4 final on Saturday, but their efforts fell short of Peter Lovas and Jan Riapos of Slovakia, adding another silver for Korea.

Silver medals from the two duos are still the highest finish by any Korean table tennis player so far both at this year’s Paralympics and Olympics, where the country ended with two bronze medals.

Not just the two silvers, but Korea has also collected three bronzes in table tennis.

Jung Young-a and Moon Seung-hye won bronze after losing the women’s doubles semifinals on Saturday. Kang Oe-jeong and Lee Mi-gyu also took bronze in the same category after losing the semifinals on the same day.

Park Jin-cheol and Cha Soo-young lost in the men’s doubles semifinals on Friday to claim bronze.

Korean table tennis players Cha Soo-young, left, and Park Jin-cheol compete against Slovakia in the men's doubles semifinals at the 2024 Paris Paralympic Games in Paris on Friday. [NEWS1]

In the Paralympics’ table tennis tournament, semifinal losers do not play a bronze-medal match and win an automatic medal.

Korean table tennis players’ medal hunt is yet to finish, with other matches still underway as of press time.

Taekwondo Taekwondo practitioner Joo Jeong-hun saw success in the sport Korea invented by winning a bronze medal in the men’s K44 -80 kilogram category on Saturday, claiming the country’s first medal in taekwondo and his second Paralympic bronze medal after the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics, where taekwondo was contested for the first time in tournament history.

Joo Jeong-hun, left, kicks Nurlan Dombayev of Kazakhstan during the men’s K44 -80 kilogram taekwondo bronze medal match at the 2024 Paris Paralympic Games on Saturday in Paris. [YONHAP]

Unlike the Tokyo Paralympics, where Joo was Korea's only competitor, this year saw the addition of Lee Dong-ho in the men’s K44 -63 kilograms, but he failed to advance past the round of 16 after losing to Milad Adnan of Israel.

Joo’s bronze ends Korea’s medal run in taekwondo, as Lee is the only other Korean competitor at this year’s tournament.

Goalball The ongoing goalball tournament saw the Korean women's team securing a win for the first time in 28 years with their victory over host country France in the group stage on Saturday.

With one win and one loss in hand so far, one more win in the group stage will send Korea through to the quarterfinals.

The Korean women's goalball team compete against France at the 2024 Paris Paralympic Games in Paris on Saturday. [KOREA PARALYMPIC COMMITTEE]

This year marks Korea’s fourth time competing in goalball at the Games and first time doing so since 2012, when they finished in fifth place. The country has yet to medal in the sport at the Paralympics, although the women’s team arrived in Paris after winning bronze at the Hangzhou Asian Para Games last year.

Goalball is played by two teams of three players on the same size court as volleyball. Teams roll a ball containing bells at high speeds toward a court-wide goal, with defending players throwing themselves in front of the ball in an attempt to stop it. Each game is played over two 12-minute halves and spectators have to stay completely silent.

Korea’s group stage game against Canada was due to take place later on Sunday as of press time.

Medal quests to continue this week

Opportunities to medal remain for Team Korea, with the Paralympics lasting through Sept. 8.

Korea still has contests underway in plenty of sports the country has been good at in the past, like archery and athletics.

Korea need to win 15 more medals to surpass the total medal count they saw at the Tokyo Para Games in 2021, at 24. That number was a decline from the 2016 Games, where the country won 35 medals.

A total of 83 Korean athletes in 17 sports are competing at this year’s Games.

BY PAIK JI-HWAN [paik.jihwan@joongang.co.kr]