Eighteen-year-old high school athlete Kim Tae-hee (Erie High School) has won the first medal for South Korea in track and field at the Hangzhou 2022 Asian Games. Kim won bronze in the women’s hammer throw with a throw of 64 meters (14 feet), breaking the Korean record, on Monday at the Hangzhou Olympic Sports Park Main Stadium in Hangzhou, China.
A discus thrower until middle school, Kim switched to the hammer in her freshman year of high school and quickly established herself as South Korea’s top female thrower. She won the Asian Youth Championships (U18) in Kuwait in October last year with a mark of 59m24 and finished third at the Asian Junior Championships (U20) in June this year. He has broken the high school record three times so far this year, and on the big stage of the Asian Games, he broke an 11-year-old Korean record. The previous South Korean record was 63.80 meters, set by Kang Naru at the 2012 World Athletics Championships in Daegu.
Kim Tae-hee became the first South Korean medalist in the women’s hammer throw. The women’s hammer throw was introduced at the 2002 Asian Games in Busan, South Korea, but no South Korean athlete has ever won a medal. China has 사설토토 swept the gold and silver medals at every edition. Wang Zheng (71 meters, 53 feet) and Zhao Jie (69 meters, 44 feet) swept the top two spots. Including the men’s competition, the only other Asian Games medalist before Kim Tae-hee was Song Kyo-sik, who won bronze in Manila in 1954.