2019 Asia/Oceania Championships & Olympic Qualifier: Lee seals golden double for Korea

Lee Jihun of Korea became Asian champion and sealed a place at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games on the second day of the 2019 Asia/Oceania Championships & Olympic Qualifier.

Lee (KOR) won a convincing gold medal ahead of China athletes Luo Shuai (silver) and Zhang Linbin (bronze). With only one qualification spot available to each nation, that meant Lee (KOR) and Luo (CHN) could be added to the provisional entry list for the Olympic Games, along with 4th-placed Pavel Ilyashenko of Kazakhstan, 7th-placed Shohei Iwamoto of Japan and 8th-placed Alexander Savkin of Uzbekistan.

The championships also doubled as an official qualification for athletes from Oceania, and London 2012 Olympian Edward Fernon of Australia finished 14th to stake his claim to a Tokyo 2020 berth, five places ahead of team-mate Rhys Lanskey (AUS).

Only Asian athlete – Jun Woongtae (KOR) – had previously earned qualification for next year’s Games.

The full list of men’s Olympic qualifiers, subject to the UIPM Tokyo 2020 qualification system, is as follows:

• Lee Jihun (KOR)
• Luo Shuai (CHN)
• Pavel Ilyashenko (KAZ)
• Shohei Iwamoto (JPN)
• Alexander Savkin (UZB)
• Edward Fernon (AUS)

The latest 12 Olympic qualifiers joined 28 athletes from the Africa, Europe and NORCECA and South America regions who performed well in their continental championships earlier in 2019, as well as six who qualified courtesy of their finishing positions at the UIPM 2019 Pentathlon World Cup Final and UIPM 2019 Pentathlon World Championships.

The overall total of qualifiers for Tokyo 2020 now stands at 46, with only 26 places remaining to be allocated through the ranking system and other means in 2020.

The men’s final came 24 hours after five women from Asia and one from Oceania secured their qualification places at Tokyo 2020, subject to the UIPM Tokyo 2020 qualification system. The women’s qualifiers are:

• Kim Sehee (KOR)
• Natsumi Tomonaga (JPN)
• Alise Fakhrutdinova (UZB)
• Zhang Mingyu (CHN)
• Elena Potapenko (KAZ)
• Rebecca Jamieson (NZL)