South Korean equestrian Nam Dong-heon, 37, delivered a gold-medal ride that announced the revival of the country's dressage program.
Nam finished first in the individual dressage final at the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games, riding Leonidas at the Tokyo Equestrian Park in Japan on Sept. 27. It was South Korea's 17th gold medal of the Games. He scored 75.190 points, edging China's Yu Jiayi, who took silver with 75.050, by 0.140 points. The bronze went to China's Rao Jiayi with 74.935 points.
Nam's victory returned the Asian Games individual dressage title to South Korea for the first time in 12 years, since the 2014 Incheon Games. The country once dominated the event, sweeping the gold medal five consecutive times from the 1998 Bangkok Games through Busan in 2002, Doha in 2006, Guangzhou in 2010 and Incheon in 2014.
That run ended at the 2018 Jakarta-Palembang Games, where South Korea managed only an individual bronze and a team silver. At the most recent Games in Hangzhou in 2023, the country failed to win any medal at all — the first time it had come away empty-handed since dressage was added as an official event at the 1986 Seoul Games. This win restored that earlier standing.
The gold was Nam's second medal of these Games. On Sept. 25, at the same venue, he joined Kim Si-woo, Lee Myung-seok and Do Hyun-woo to take silver in the team dressage final with 205.265 points. His own score of 70.559 was the highest among all riders in the team event, an early signal of the gold to come.
Dressage, often called ballet on horseback, hinges on the rapport between rider and horse. Inside an arena measuring 60 meters by 20 meters, the rider directs the horse through a set course of movements including walking and trotting. Judges assess the horse's stride and rhythm along with the precision and artistry of each movement, and rankings are determined by the percentage of the maximum possible score.
The win also erased the disappointment of the last Games. In Hangzhou, Nam was forced to withdraw at the last moment after First Edition, the horse he had ridden for years, was suddenly injured.
Nam came back from that setback and climbed to the top of the podium with Leonidas, the 10-year-old horse he had spent the past three years building trust with for this competition. For South Korean equestrian, the long wait for a title is over.
