An Olympic bull’s-eye

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An Olympic bull’s-eye

 The Tokyo Olympics have already proven the raison d’être of the international sports gala to a 7.9 billion global audiences. The marvelous achievement of the Korean archery team, in particular, is a powerful reminder of the significance of the value of fairness to the rest of the world. The Korean women’s archery team grabbed its ninth consecutive victory against Russia on Sunday in the final at the Yumenoshima Park Archery Field in Tokyo. The team has never missed a triumph since the event was officially adopted as an official Olympic event.

The ninth victory owes much to various factors, including hard training in Korea in an environment similar to the archery field in Tokyo and full-fledged backing by the Korean Archery Association.

But the most outstanding feature of all was the level playing field that determined the final contestants for the Olympic Games. Coaches of the team allowed any participants to compete in the preliminary games in Korea regardless of their age and careers. They cast aside the existing practice of allowing ex-medalists to skip the first and second preliminaries. That’s not all. Each contestant had to shoot up to 2,500 arrows at each level of the contest. Korea’s young generation is raving about the fairness principle used by coaches to form a national team of archers aged between 17 and 40.

Though Korea’s per capita GDP exceeded $30,000 in 2018 and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad) elevated Korea’s status to a developed country, the people are still embarrassed over unfairness and inequality in society. The far-reaching scandal about former Justice Minister Cho Kuk’s family enraged a countless number of youths and unfair employment practices by financial institutions and public corporations provoked outrage from them. President Moon Jae-in’s inaugural speech highlighting the values of fairness and equity was inspiring to many young people — until it suddenly seemed a pipe dream.

Korean society is plagued by a critical dearth of fair investigations by law enforcement agencies and fair trials by the judiciary. The people’s jubilation over the phenomenal feat by the archery team reaffirms their desperation for impartiality.

We cannot but wonder who among our presidential aspirants can embody the value of equity if elected. Our national archery team has made it. Can our politicians do the same? With such refreshing news coming from Tokyo in the sizzling summer heat, we wish our political circles would consider fairness in their field. We also look forward to seeing our corporate sector learn from the archery team how to win an overwhelming victory against rivals. The archers deserve cheers and applause from the bottom of our hearts.
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