As the medal race at the Paris Olympics enters the final week, sport climbing and wrestling will be among the new sports set to get under way for South Korean athletes Monday.
Sport climber Lee Do-hyun will compete in the boulder semifinal of the men’s boulder and lead combined event on Monday in Le Bourget, just north of Paris. Lee won the silver medal at the 2023 Asian Games in the combined event and is regarded as a medal threat for South Korea in France.
The lead semifinal is Wednesday, followed by the combined final on Friday.
Lee is the son of Lee Chang-hyun, head coach of the South Korean national climbing team at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.
The objective of bouldering is to scale multiple routes with the fewest attempts within a time limit. In lead climbing, athletes get one attempt to ascend as high as they can on a route set on a 15-meter wall within six minutes.
The wrestling competition starts Monday, and South Korea will send Lee Seung-chan in the men’s Greco-Roman 130-kilogram event.
Lee d
efeated Kim Min-seok, a two-time Asian Games bronze medalist with a 2018 world bronze medal to his name, in the national team trials in February to earn his ticket to Paris.
The round of 16, quarterfinals and semifinals are set for Monday at Champ-de-Mars Arena in the French capital, and the repechage matches and the final are Tuesday.
Also on Monday, South Korea will face Brazil in the round of 16 in the women’s table tennis team event. A team match is made up of one doubles and four singles matches, and it ends when one team has won three matches.
Shin Yu-bin, the mixed doubles bronze medalist, will take a second crack at winning her second medal in Paris after losing in the bronze medal match of the women’s singles on Saturday.
Source: Yonhap News Agency