‘Smile Jumper’ Woo Sang-hyeok (27, Yongin City Hall) is set to regain the top spot at the Asian Athletics Championships.스포츠토토

The 2023 Asian Athletics Championships will be held in Bangkok, Thailand from the 12th to the 16th. The men’s high jump final, featuring Woo Sang-hyeok, will start on the 15th at 6:20 p.m. Woo Sang-hyeok has already arrived in Bangkok and is training with a lot of interest.

Woo Sang-hyeok won the 2017 Bhubaneswar Games in India over 2m30. At the 2019 Doha Games in Qatar, which fell into a terrible slump, it tied for 7th with 2m19. The Hangzhou, China tournament scheduled for 2021 was canceled due to Corona 19. Woo Sang-hyeok is aiming to win the Asian Championship for the first time in six years.

Prior to moving to Bangkok, Woo Sang-hyeok went through ‘the first ordeal of the season’. Woo Sang-hyeok placed 2nd in the Doha Diamond League on May 6th (2m27), won the Yecheon KBS Cup on May 9th (2m32), which also served as the representative selection match for the Hangzhou Asian Games, won the Yokohama Golden Grand Prix on May 21st (2m29), and won the Yokohama Golden Grand Prix (2m29) on June 3rd. It cruised in this year’s outdoor season, including second place in the Rome and Florence Diamond League (2m30) and first place (2m33) at the Jeongseon National Athletics Championships on June 25. However, on the 3rd of this month, in the Stockholm Diamond League, it was unable to overcome the environment of heavy rain and failed to exceed 2m16 in three attempts, ending the game without a record.

Woo Sang-hyeok will use this Asian Championship as an opportunity to rebound and challenge to win the World Championships in August and the Asian Games in Hangzhou, which will open in September.

Korean athletics won 27 gold medals, 58 silver medals, and 64 bronze medals at the Asian Athletics Championships held up to the 23rd time. However, at the 2019 Doha Games, it was only a no medal. The Korean track and field team consisted of 21 players, including Woo Sang-hyeok. All of them are players who have qualified for the Hangzhou Asian Games. Kim Da-eun (20, Gapyeong-gun Office), who has established herself as the strongest Korean women’s 100m, is competing in an international competition for the first time in her life. Male hammer thrower Lee Yun-cheol (40, Eumseong-gun Office), who won the bronze medal in Bhubaneswar in 2017, is challenging to win a medal at the Asian Championships in six years.