"Did He Win a Bronze Medal Without Even Competing?" Error Also Counted Kim Young-beom's Medal Total as Four [Nagoya AG]

[Financial News] At the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games, which had been plagued by various controversies even before its opening, it was discovered that athletes' medal tallies were riddled with errors.
Yonhap News Agency reported on the 23rd that, as of that day, the official Games website had incorrectly listed Korean sprint-swimming ace Kim Young-beom (Gangwon Special Self-Governing Province Office) as having won four medals. Kim Young-beom won gold in the 50m freestyle, silver in the 100m freestyle, and bronze in the men's 400m medley relay, but the website also counted him as a bronze medalist in the 800m relay, an event he did not compete in.
Kim Min-seop (Gyeongsangbuk-do Sports Council), Yang Jae-hoon, Junwoo Kim (both Gangwon Special Self-Governing Province Office), and Lee Ho-joon (Daegu City Hall) competed in the 800m relay preliminaries. The final lineup consisted of Junwoo Kim, Kim Woo-min (Gangwon Special Self-Governing Province Office), Lee Ho-joon, and Hwang Sun-woo (Gangwon Special Self-Governing Province Office).
A Korea Aquatics official said, "During the men's medley relay event on the 22nd, we also discovered just before the preliminary race that the athlete entry had been uploaded incorrectly and requested a correction. There are quite a few errors." In fact, by the afternoon of the 23rd, the Games website had corrected Kim Young-beom's medal tally to three.
Swimming relay events, including freestyle and medley relays, award medals to all athletes who compete in the preliminaries and finals. Although Kim Young-beom was mistakenly credited with one additional medal, it was a team-event medal, so there was no error in the Korean delegation's overall medal count.
Kim Young-beom was not the only athlete affected by such an error. Earlier, on the 20th, Seo Chang-wan, who finished fifth in the men's modern pentathlon individual event, was recorded as having won a silver medal, while Kim Young-ha, who placed 12th in the individual event, was listed as a bronze medalist. The errors were not corrected until that evening.

[email protected] Kim Hee-sun Reporter