Lim Si-hyeon wins recurve gold as Korea ends archery on top

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Published: 07 Oct. 2023, 12:45 Updated: 07 Oct. 2023, 13:13

Lim Si-hyeon wins recurve gold as Korea ends archery on top

Korea's Lim Si-hyeon and An San take gold and silver, respectively, in the women's recurve final on Saturday at the Hangzhou Asian Games. [YONHAP]

Korea topped the archery medal table on Saturday, taking home five medals in the sport on the final day of competition at the Hangzhou Asian Games — one gold, two silver and two bronze.

Korea sweep gold medals in all recurve archery team events

Korea’s Lim Si-hyeon took gold in the women’s recurve contest, beating teammate An San 6-0 in the final match on Saturday.

Lim started the final round strong to win the first and second sets, outshooting An 29-26 both times. An shot a match best of 28 points in the third round but it wasn’t enough to beat Lim’s 29, which secured Lim her third gold medal of this year’s Asiad.

Both Lim and An, who automatically took silver on Saturday, were part of the gold-medal winning women’s recurve team, with Lim also part of the gold-medal winning recurve mixed team.

Three golds makes Lim Korea's second-highest multi-medalist at the Games, beaten only by swimmer Kim Woo-min, who also has three golds but with an additional silver in the mix.

In recurve events, archers can earn up to two points for every three-arrow round. The team or individual with the highest score takes both of those points, and each side takes one point in the case of a tie.

Earlier that day, Korea’s So Chae-won took silver in the women’s compound contest, losing 149-145 to India’s Jyothi Surekha Vennam in the final round.

In compound, archers have five rounds to shoot three arrows each, and whoever has the highest total points by the end wins.

So, the current Asian Record holder in the event with 149 points in Bangkok, Thailand in 2019, started the final strong, shooting three-straight bullseyes in the first round of five total. Vennam gave up one point with her first shot but scored a perfect 10 with every other arrow to win gold.

Minutes later, Korea’s Yang Jae-won beat out teammate Joo Jae-hoon for a podium spot in the all-Korean men’s compound bronze-medal match.

Yang and Joo stayed neck-and-neck for the entire round, with neither taking a lead of more than one point after any round but Yang landed three bullseyes to score a perfect 30 points with his final arrows, narrowly edging out Joo for the bronze medal.

Korea’s Lee Woo-seok closed out the national team’s archery schedule with a bronze medal in the men’s recurve contest, beating Kazakhstan’s Ilfat Abdullin 7-1 in the Saturday bronze-medal match.

Competition was sharp and excellence high at the Fuyang Sports Centre in Hangzhou, China, where it rained lightly during the earlier rounds as coaches stood under umbrellas, holding them for the archers between arrows.

Saturday’s contest marked the end of the archery schedule at this year’s Asian Games, where Korea won 11 total medals — four gold, four silver and three bronze.

All of Korea’s gold medals came from recurve events.

Korea has been an archery powerhouse for decades, dominating both the Asian Games and Olympics since the 1980s, particularly in recurve — the traditional bow. 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. Compound is more competitive, with Indian archers outstripping Korea on both the men’s and women’s world rankings, but Korea is strong in both disciplines, winning two gold medals in each one at the 2018 Asian Games.

At this year’s Asiad, Korea took six medals from recurve events and five from compound contests.

BY MARY YANG AND JIM BULLEY [mary.yang@joongang.co.kr]