With one shot left in the 10-meter air rifle mixed team final, South Korea was trailing Japan by 0.8 points. With defeat looming, Park Ha-jun of KT and Ban Hyo-jin of the Daegu Public Facilities Management Corporation steadied themselves on the firing line and pulled their triggers. Their shots landed near the center of the target, scoring 10.9 and 10.3 points. The standings on the scoreboard flipped, and the medal turned silver.
Park and Ban scored 252.6 and 250.3 points respectively for a combined 502.9 at the 10-meter air rifle mixed team final of the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games, held on the 22nd at the Aichi Prefectural Shooting Range, finishing second behind China's 507.1. It was the first silver medal for South Korean shooting at these Games, after two bronzes over the first two days in the women's 10-meter air rifle individual event and the men's 10-meter air rifle team event.
The contest was a nail-biter. In the final, four teams compete: two shooters from each country fire 15 shots each, then take three single shots, with teams eliminated one by one starting from fourth place.
South Korea opened the final in second place behind China. But after the first single-shot round, the team slipped to third, just 0.1 point behind Japan's 378.2. India, stuck at 376.3, was the first to be eliminated.
With China running away at the top, the fight for second place intensified. South Korea and Japan traded places repeatedly. After taking the lead by 0.2 point with one shot, South Korea then fell 0.8 point behind Japan on the next.
The tight duel ended with a stunning comeback on the last shot of the second single-shot round. Japan's two shooters scored a combined 20 points, while Park and Ban put up 21.2 to reach 440.1 points and secure second place by 0.4 point. "I thought we were going to finish third," Park said. "For the last shot I just told myself to give it everything, and it landed exactly on 10.9."
South Korea then entered the gold medal round 3.5 points behind China, but could not close the gap and settled for silver. The Chinese pair finished with 507.1 points, breaking the previous world record of 506.7 set by Norway in Yerevan, Armenia, in March this year by 0.4 point.
The silver medal was the product of an unusual rapport between the two shooters. Partners in the mixed team event for nearly three years, they covered each other's weaknesses in the final. Ban built a platform in the early and middle stages with the bold shooting that is her trademark, steadily piling up points, while Park showed his instinct as a closer at every moment of crisis and finished off the comeback. "When I fell short, he shot well, and when he lagged a little, I shot hard, so we complemented each other well," Ban said.
Ban and Park, who each ended these Games with one silver and one bronze, are likely to team up again at the International Shooting Sport Federation (ISSF) World Championships in Doha, Qatar, in November. "At the World Championships in November, I'm really going to go for gold," Park said.
