Silver medal in women’s individual event… “Even though my body hurts, I decided to ignore it because of my greed.”
“I am now retiring from the Asian Games.
This will be my last.”
Na-reum (Samyang, 33), a leading Korean cyclist who unfortunately missed out on the gold medal in the women’s individual road race at the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games, said she would no longer participate in the Asian Games.
Na-reum competed at the road course at the Jeshou Sports Center in Chunan, Zhejiang, China, on the 4th.
In the women’s individual road race, she passed the 139.7km section in 3 hours, 36 minutes and 07 seconds, crossing the finish line second fastest out of 33 athletes.
She was a silver medalist by just a narrow margin. 파워볼게임
The championship went to Hong Kong’s Yang Chen-yu.
Although the two athletes’ records were the same down to the second, Yang Qianyu crossed the finish line faster.
Na-reum, who has won five Asian Games gold medals, starting with the road solo victory at the 2014 Incheon Games, unfortunately missed the opportunity to become Korea’s most gold medalist at the Summer Asian Games.
If Na-reum had won her 6th gold medal in her career, she could have stood shoulder to shoulder with Koo Bon-gil (fencing), Park Tae-hwan (swimming), Nam Hyun-hee (fencing), Seo Jeong-gyun (horseback riding), Yang Chang-hoon (archery), and Ryu Seo-yeon (bowling).
Na Areum after the game that she would no longer participate in the Asian Games.
For Na Areum, who has been competing since the 2010 Guangzhou Games, this was his fourth Asian Games.
Na-reum said, “My body hurts a lot.
But I’m so greedy that I’ll try to ignore the pain and continue, so I made that decision.”
In fact, Na-reum battled knee pain ahead of this competition.
There were days when he couldn’t train as much as he wanted because his knees were sore, and there was a vicious cycle where his confidence dropped because he couldn’t train as much as he wanted.
Na-reum said, “Before the game, my knee was fine.
But when I actually played, I felt like I used too much strength without realizing it,” and “It started to hurt little by little.
I thought, ‘I will do it to the end today even if it hurts.’”
On this day, Na-reum, who had risen to the lead with about 13km left before the finish line, went toe-to-toe with Hong Kong’s Yang Chen-yu, gradually widening the gap with the other athletes.
The race, which was a two-way match, continued to be a close race until the very end, and in the sprint section ahead of the finish line, Yang Chen-yu took the gold medal, ahead of Na-reum by a ‘piece of paper.’
At the end, when he couldn’t achieve as much speed as Yang Chenyu, Nareum used his energy and pedaled, but it wasn’t easy.
This is because he was in the lead after sprinting once before entering the final section, so he lacked the final strength.
Na-reum said, “I tried not to rush, but I thought I would really regret it if I got caught at the end like this, so I tried to sprint early.
The regret remains.
But the whole race was very difficult, so I am very thankful (for the silver medal).
“It was done,” he said.
Na-reum, who lost the gold medal in the ‘last Asian Games’ right before her eyes, said, “It’s disappointing.
I have a lot of regrets,” but smiled, “But still, this was the best I could do.
It’s better than ending without being able to do anything.”
Na-reum, who participated in four events in this competition, including the women’s track team pursuit, Madison, and road solo, won silver and bronze medals in the individual road and Madison respectively.