“I’m so upset because I feel like I blew away the opportunity to continue your achievements.”
Even Ryu Eun-hee (33, Hungarian doctrine), who had always been as hard as a pillar, shed tears. South Korean women’s handball lost to Japan in the final of the Hangzhou Asian Games and won the silver medal. 온라인카지노
South Korea was completely defeated by Japan 19-29 in the women’s handball final held at Hangzhou Zhejiang Palace Stadium in Zhejiang Province, China on the 5th. It is the first loss in 13 years between Korea and Japan since the semifinal match at the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou.
Korea was the strongest country in Asia in women’s handball in name and reality. Women’s handball has won all but once since the 1990 Beijing Games, when it was adopted as an official event at the Asian Games. At the 2010 Guangzhou Games alone, he won the bronze medal after being defeated by Japan in the semifinals. At that time, Japan took the silver medal because it could not surpass China in the final.
Since then, Korea has never lost to Japan. Although it has been in a close race with Japan for the Asian summit over the past year, the result was all a victory for Korea. In December last year, the team won the Asian Championship final 34-29 after an extended match. In August, South Korea also won 25-24 in the Asian qualifying final of the Paris Olympics, securing a ticket to the Olympic finals.
Hangzhou also sought to win three consecutive championships following Incheon in 2014 and Jakarta-Palembang in 2018. In the semi-finals, South Korea defeated China 30–23, and Japan defeated Kazakhstan 40–22. As expected, Korea and Japan reached the final. Japan, which repeatedly gave up gold medals to Korea, even changed its uniform and showed up. Instead of blue, she wore yellow, which symbolizes the gold medal, and challenged for her first gold medal at the Asian Games.
A tight race was expected. However, the game leaned toward Japan from the beginning. South Korea’s long shot was blocked repeatedly by Japan’s short goalkeeper Atsuko Baba. Even Ryu Eun-hee, who suffered from all sorts of hardships, failed to score a 7m throw for the first time in the tournament.
Baba is the shortest among goalkeepers in both countries, standing 1m 64cm tall. Nevertheless, he dominated the early trend by clearing eight of Korea’s first 10 shots. South Korea sought a chance to shoot, but could hardly close the five-point gap due to Japan’s tight defense. South Korea ended the first half with an 8-14 deficit.
South Korea followed again 10-15 after the start of the second half with back-to-back goals from Kang Kyung-min and Kim Bo-eun. However, as Japan’s attacks succeeded one after another, the score quickly widened to 10-18. On the other hand, South Korea also had bad luck with the goalkeeper and the shot he tried from one-on-one chances repeatedly hit the post and bounced off. Kim Sun-hwa’s middle shot, which was attempted in the 19th minute of the second half when he was trailing 13-22, was hit by goalkeeper Baba’s foot and went out of the net. It was the moment when Korea’s silver medal and Japan’s first-ever gold medal were confirmed.
Ryu Eun-hee constantly swallowed the rising tears after the game, saying, “I feel so bad.” “I knew how important this game was. So I really wanted to win, he said. “I always did my best to play my role well as the oldest, but it didn’t go my way and I kept creaking. There were too many mistakes in sleeping,” he said. The 19th youngest Kim Min-seo said, “I will prepare harder with my sisters so that I can play the Korea-Japan match with more confidence in the next competition.”