Kim Min-young, a 21-year-old student at Korea National Sport University, became the first South Korean to win an Asian Games gold medal in kurash at the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games.
Kim beat Shih Liu-ling of Taiwan 5-0 in the women's over-87-kilogram final at the Aichi Prefectural Budokan in Nagoya, Japan, on Sept. 29.
Kurash became an official Asian Games event at the 2018 Jakarta-Palembang Games, and Kim is the first member of the South Korean squad to take gold in the sport. The team came away without a medal at that first Games, then won its first medals at the 2023 Hangzhou Games with one silver and two bronzes. All three medalists were men.
At this year's Games, Mo Su-min of Korea National Sport University won silver in the women's 78-kilogram class a day earlier, becoming the first South Korean woman to medal in kurash, before Kim claimed the country's first gold in the sport.
Kim is regarded as Asia's strongest female kurash competitor. She won the women's over-87-kilogram title at this year's Asian Championships, where Shih was also the runner-up. On the day, Kim dispatched her opponents in the round of 16 and the quarterfinals with "halal," the sport's equivalent of a decisive throw, then beat Arailym Shegenova of Kazakhstan 1-0 in the semifinals to reach the final.
Kim took up judo in middle school after following a friend to the gym and began kurash in college at the suggestion of a professor. The skills she built competing in both sports carried her to her first Asian Games gold.
Park Jong-won, competing in the same weight class, lost 0-3 to Shegenova in the quarterfinals, and Yoon Hyun-soo lost 0-10 to Kubanychbek Aibek Uulu of Kyrgyzstan in the quarterfinals of the men's 66-kilogram class.
Kurash, a traditional Uzbek martial art, resembles judo but bars pins, chokes and joint locks on the ground. Bouts are decided by throws executed from a standing position.
