Korea takes first archery gold in mixed team recurve

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Published: 04 Oct. 2023, 17:53 Updated: 04 Oct. 2023, 23:49

Korea takes first archery gold in mixed team recurve

Korea's Lim Si-hyeon, left, and Lee Woo-seok celebrate on the podium after beating Japan in the final to take the mixed team recurve archery gold medal at the Hangzhou Asian Games in Hangzhou, China on Wednesday. [NEWS1]

The Korean mixed recurve team beat Japan 6-0 in the final on Wednesday, winning Korea’s first archery gold medal of the Hangzhou Asian Games.

Korea’s Lim Si-hyeon and Lee Woo-seok started off strong, combining for 38 in the first set to narrowly edge out Japan’s Satsuki Noda and Takaharu Furukawa with 37, taking the two points.

That momentum continued through the second set, which Korea won 37-35, and the third set, 39-35. That gave Korea a straight 6-0 win, taking the gold medal in under 10 minutes.

In recurve archery, each team member fires two arrows each per set, with the combined score deciding the set score. The higher score gets two points, with tied scores earning one point each. The first to six wins the match.

The recurve gold came hours after Korea won its first archery medal of the Games, losing to India in the mixed team compound final to take silver.

Korea’s So Chae-won and Joo Jae-hoon dropped just two points in that final, one in the first end and one in the fourth end, to finish with a total score of 158, one point behind India’s 159.

Despite the loss, Wednesday’s silver saw Korea defend its second-place finish from the 2018 Games, where So was also part of the team that lost to Chinese Taipei in the final. The mixed event was introduced in 2018.

Korea has been an archery powerhouse for decades, dominating both the Asian Games and Olympics since the 1980s. At the delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics, where only recurve events were held, Korea won four of the five available gold medals.

The Asian Games also includes compound archery, a modern iteration of the sport using more high-tech bows that require less physical strength to draw. Korea is strong in both disciplines, winning two gold medals in each one at the 2018 Asian Games.

Korea’s performance at the last Asiad paled in comparison to the Tokyo Olympics. While Kim Woo-jin won the men’s individual recurve event and the women’s team of Chang Hye-jin, Kang Chae-young and Lee Eun-gyeong took the team gold, Korea took silver in the men’s team, bronze in the women’s individual and did not medal in the mixed team event.

Those results could look quite different this year after Korea’s dominance at the Olympics. Kim Woo-jin is the third-highest ranked male recurve archer in the world and the highest ranked in Asia, with Lee Woo-seok and Kim Je-deok both in the global top 10.

Over in the women’s recurve, Lim Si-hyeon sits at world No. 3 with Olympic record holder and the most successful Olympic archer ever An San at No. 5. Kang and Choi Mi-sun at No. 6 and 7, with no other Asian archers in the top 10.

Compound is more competitive, with Indian archers outstripping Korea on both the men’s and women’s world rankings, but Korea is still the second-highest ranked country on either ranking.

With the mixed team events now finished, the archery schedule will continue Thursday with the women’s and men’s team compound events. The team recurve events follow on Friday, with all individual medals up for grabs on Saturday.

BY JIM BULLEY [jim.bulley@joongang.co.kr]