Nagoya: South Korea started its women's handball tournament at the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games with a big win on Saturday. Coached by Lee Kye-chung, South Korea defeated Hong Kong 48-16 at Entrio in Inazawa, just northwest of the main host city, Nagoya, Japan.
According to Yonhap News Agency, South Korea took an early lead of 5-2 and then went on an 11-2 run to expand their advantage significantly. Lee Won-jung was the standout player with nine goals while Jeon Ji-yeon contributed eight. A total of twelve players scored at least one goal for South Korea.
The format of the women's handball tournament this year will not include a knockout stage. Instead, medals will be awarded to the top three teams among the seven competitors based on their performance in the round-robin matches. South Korea is set to face Kazakhstan on Sunday, Uzbekistan on Wednesday, China on Friday, Vietnam next Saturday, and Japan on September 27.
Barring any unexpected results, the match between South Korea and Japan is anticipated to be the decider for the gold medal. While South Korea secured gold medals in 2014 and 2018, they were defeated by Japan in the final of the 2023 competition.
In an earlier incident before the game, the anthems for both teams were not played during the pregame ceremony. This followed another anthem-related issue on Friday, when North Korea's anthem was mistakenly played instead of South Korea's before a men's field hockey game. The organizing committee has since issued a formal apology to the South Korean delegation.