Japan's 11-year-old Puyo Puyo champion wins gold — and barely bats an eye

Japan's Kuriha Yuki, 11, won gold in the Puyo Puyo esports event at the 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games on Saturday, becoming the youngest gold medalist in Asian Games history. South Korea's Kang Dong-shin, 24, fell to Kuriha in the final and took silver.

Kuriha dismantled Kang 10-2 in the final, then drew attention at the post-match press conference for showing almost no emotion — and had even been spotted yawning before the match began.

Asked how it felt to win, Kuriha said he was "incredibly happy," but added that it ranked only "second or third happiest" in his life. When asked what had made him happiest, he said winning a finals tournament in February and a league title had topped that list.

His composure was fitting. Throughout the tournament, tension was hard to find, as Kuriha's skill level far outpaced the rest of the field. He swept every opponent 3-0 in the group stage — except Kang — and dominated his quarterfinal and semifinal matches just as one-sidedly.

Asked why his expression had not changed when victory was confirmed, Kuriha said he had been "a little embarrassed" and could not show his joy outwardly, but was "incredibly happy inside."

On the pre-final yawn, he said he had not been particularly nervous. "Kang is a very skilled player with strengths in quick attacks and long chains," he said. "Even if I prepared a strategy, I couldn't predict how the match would go, so I decided to just respond as it unfolded."

Asked how it felt to become the youngest medalist in Asian Games history, he gave a simple answer: "Incredibly happy."

He also offered some answers that were unmistakably those of an elementary school student.

At an earlier press conference before the tournament, Kuriha had made headlines by saying he wanted to spend his prize money on "something like jewels." The topic came up again Saturday.

Asked why he wanted jewels, he said he liked "shiny things — especially blue-colored gems." When asked whether he knew how much the prize money was, he said, "I'm not really sure."

According to the organizers, the winner receives 100,000 yen ($635).

On his preparation, Kuriha said he normally can only play for about an hour a day because of hagwon homework, but had put in three hours a day leading up to the tournament.

Born June 18, 2015, Kuriha is currently a fifth-grader at a Japanese elementary school. His favorite subject is social studies, his favorite food is eel, and his dream is to become a train engineer.

With this victory, he surpassed Indonesia's Nimas Bunga Cinta — who was 12 at the time she won bronze in women's street skateboarding at the 2018 Jakarta-Palembang Games — to become the youngest medalist in Asian Games history.

Esports became an official Asian Games discipline starting with the 2022 Hangzhou Games.

Puyo Puyo, the official esports title, is a puzzle game similar to Tetris in which players stack blocks and connect four or more jelly characters of the same color to clear them. The more same-colored characters a player chains together, the more nuisance pieces they can send to disrupt their opponent.