‘Smile Jumper’ Woo Sang-hyuk (27, Yongin City Hall) will look to regain the top spot at the Asian Athletics Championships for the first time in six years.

Woo will compete in the men’s high jump final at the 2023 Asian Athletic Championships, which kicks off at 6:20 p.m. KST on Friday.

A total of 14 athletes will compete in the men’s high jump at the Games, but Woo’s record and history show that he has no competition.

Woo’s personal best is 2.36 meters. This season, he has already cleared 2.33 meters, making him the world’s co-leader in that category and the world’s leader in ranking points with 1,376.

His resume also includes a first place finish at the 2022 World Indoor Championships (2.34m) and a second place finish at the World Outdoor Championships (2.35m).

Three-time world champion Mutaz Essa Barshim (Qatar), the ‘best of the best’, did not compete at the event.

In the end, the men’s high jump at the 2023 Asian Athletics Championships is likely to be contested by Japan’s Ryoichi Akamatsu (personal best 2.29m), Naoto Hasegawa (2.26m) and India’s Deshaswyn Shankar (2.29m).

Woo won the 2017 Asian Championships in Bhubaneswar, India, by clearing 2.30 meters.

He fell into a severe slump in 2019, finishing seventh at 2.19 in Doha, Qatar. The 2021 edition in Hangzhou, China, was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Woo will be looking to win his first Asian title in six years.

Woo Sang-hyuk’s status is completely different from 2017, when he won the Asian Championship, and 2019, when he finished seventh.

Despite winning a silver medal at the 2018 Jakarta-Palembang Asian Games, Woo was “not a sure thing in Asia” until the first half of 2021.

After finishing fourth at the Tokyo Olympics on August 1, 2021, clearing 2.35 meters, Woo made the leap to becoming a “world-class jumper”.

In 2022, he won the World Indoor Championships in March (2.34m) and the World Outdoor Championships in July (2.35m), and this year he is still the world leader (1,376 points) and the world record holder (2.33m).

However, before heading to Bangkok, Woo faced his “first trial of the season.

Woo had cruised through the outdoor season this year, winning the Doha Diamond League on May 6 (2.27m), the Yecheon KBS Boat Race on May 9 (2.32m), which doubled as a qualifier for the Hangzhou Asian Games, the Yokohama Golden Grand Prix on May 21 (2.29m), the Rome-Pirenze Diamond League on June 3 (2.30m), and the Jeongseon National Athletics Championships on June 25 (2.33m).

However, 먹튀검증토토사이트 at the Stockholm Diamond League on July 3, she was unable to overcome strong rainy conditions and failed to clear 2.16m in three attempts, finishing without a record.

With the World Championships in August and the Hangzhou Asian Games starting in September, Woo hopes to use the Asian Championships as an opportunity to rebound.

Korean Athletics will also be hoping Woo strikes gold.

South Korea finished with a bronze medal at the 2019 Asian Athletics Championships in Doha.

By day 13, the country had won two bronze medals in the men’s 400-meter relay (Lee Shimon, Shin Seung-hwan, Shin Min-kyu, Park Won-jin) and the men’s triple jump (Kim Jang-woo). However, they have yet to win a gold medal.

If Woo returns to form, Korean athletics will be back in the gold medal hunt at the Asian Games.