swept a whopping 22 medals in the management category. It was well over 16 at the 2006 Doha Games.
Six of them were gold medals. This is two more than the number of gold medals won at the 2010 Guangzhou Games, which is considered to have the best performance ever.
Following management, ‘diving’ takes over the baton. Woo Ha-ram (25, Korea Sports Promotion Foundation), a living legend of Korean diving, will participate in the Hangzhou Asian Games on the 30th.
Starting with the men’s synchronized 3m springboard at the Hangzhou Olympic Sports Center swimming pool in China, he took his first step toward achieving his goal of winning medals in all events at this competition.
Woo Ha-ram has been a leading figure in Korean diving since he was a teenager. At the age of 16, he competed in the Incheon Asian Games and won a silver medal in the men’s synchronized 10m platform.
He grabbed bronze medals in the synchronized 3m springboard, 10m platform, and 1m springboard. He immediately emerged as the top prospect in a ‘weak diving country’.
At the 2016 Rio Olympics, he became the first athlete in Korean diving history to advance to the Olympic finals. In the men’s diving 10m platform finals, he ranked 11th overall with a total of 414.55 points in the 6th period.
Korean diving history was rewritten at the 2019 Gwangju World Aquatics Championships and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
In Gwangju, he ranked 4th in both the 1m springboard and 3m springboard. She also achieved success in Tokyo, placing 4th in the 3m springboard. Both were the best results in Korean men’s diving history.
Woo Ha-ram has many good memories from the Asian Games. At the 2014 Incheon Games, he won one silver and three bronze medals, and at the 2018 Jakarta-Palembang Games, he won two silver and two bronze medals.
He has eight Asian Games medals. Among the Korean players who participated in this year’s Hangzhou Games, no player has stepped on the podium at the Asian Games more than Woo Ha-ram. 안전놀이터
It’s just that he hasn’t dug up the ‘vein of gold’ yet. This competition also looks promising for the top spot on the podium. In reality, it is not easy to win a gold medal because the host country, China, is a very strong diving country and has a home advantage.
Moreover, Woo Ha-ram experienced ups and downs after the Tokyo Olympics. He suffered from a slump for over a year and a half due to a back injury. He was unable to compete at the World Championships in Budapest last year due to a lumbar disc, and also performed somewhat poorly at the World Championships in Fukuoka last July. He finished 19th in the 3m springboard preliminaries.
However, he took 7th place in the 1m springboard finals, showing the light of day. Attention is focused on whether Woo Ha-ram, who has been in a slump since last year due to a back injury, can make a ‘diving comeback’ in Hangzhou.