Seong Seung-min wins South Korea's first gold of the Asian Games
The Paris bronze medalist and 2024 world champion scored 1,492 points in women's modern pentathlon at Anjo — and snapped China's four-Games individual streak.
Seong Seung-min (white kit) after the women's final at the 2026 UIPM World Championships in Guiyang, with Hungary's Blanka Guzi celebrating.
Photo: 三猎 / CC BY-SA 4.0
Seong Seung-min won South Korea's first gold of the Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games on Sunday, taking the women's modern pentathlon at Anjo Sports Park with 1,492 points. No Korean woman had ever won the individual title.
China's Zhang Mingyu, trying for a third straight Asian Games gold, finished 32 points back at 1,460. Teammate Wu Xiyao took bronze at 1,447.
She won the fencing knockout for 250 points, beating Zhang in the semifinals and then her teammate Kim Un-ju in the final. On the obstacle course that replaced riding after Paris, she ran a personal-best 29.26 seconds for 358 points and fourth on the day, and she still led.
She was seventh in the 100 freestyle (1:01.14, 295 points), which bought an 18-second head start in the laser run. She stayed clean at the range, finished second in the segment for 589, and crossed first.
China had won this event at the last four Asian Games. Yang Su-jin, Kim Se-hee, and Kim Sun-woo all took silver for Korea and stopped there. Seong broke that line on the first day after Saturday's opening ceremony, then added team silver with Kim Un-ju and Shin Su-min behind China.
She is 23 and from Daegu. In June 2024 she became the first South Korean woman to win an individual world championship. In Paris she followed it with Olympic bronze — the first Asian woman to medal in the event, on the last Olympic program that still used horses. Last month in Guiyang she won mixed-relay world gold with Seo Chang-wan.
Sunday was the first Asian Games women's title decided on the obstacle course — the format Los Angeles will use. That is the version of the sport she takes into the next Olympics.