Cupid strikes as Olympic archery teammates hit a bull’s-eye for love

Home > National > People

print dictionary print

Cupid strikes as Olympic archery teammates hit a bull’s-eye for love

테스트

Park Kyung-mo, Park Sung-hyun

Olympic archers Park Kyung-mo and Park Sung-hyun have become two of the hottest celebrities in town.

Already well-known to Korean sports enthusiasts, they were again thrust into the national limelight for their brilliant shooting skills as gold medal winners at the Beijing Olympic Games.

But their current fame comes not from their Games success, but from the bombshell announcement they dropped after the Games that they will tie the knot at the end of this year.

“I will marry Sung-hyun in December,” Park Kyung-mo was quoted by the Korea Archery Association as saying. “I already introduced her to my father before his death in early June.

“Now that everyone knows [about our marriage], I hope people will support us so that we can be a happy couple,” he added.

The distractions, however, did not affect their performances. “I was a little worried that their relationship might affect the national archery team when it was preparing for the Olympics. But now, I’m just happy for them,” said Seo Geo-won, executive director of the Korea Archery Association.

It was only late last year that their eight-year friendship as national archery team members evolved into love. The two were preparing for the Beijing Olympics at that time while Park Kyung-mo was going through a painful time with his father, who was suffering from a terminal disease. With Park Sung-hyun there to console him, they began considering each other as potential life partners.

They subsequently kept their relationship to themselves so as not to affect the national team, preferring to announce their marriage plans after the Games ended.

Following media reports that the couple will wed in December, Park Kyung-mo said, “The wedding date has not been decided yet as the issue is something to be discussed with parents on both sides. We also should take our match schedules into consideration.”

The two obviously share many things in common. Both captured gold in the team competition at the Beijing Olympics and grabbed silvers in the individual competition.

Park Sung-hyun won two golds in the 2004 Athens Olympics - one from the team competition and the other from the individual contest. Park Kyung-mo snatched gold in the team competition in Athens.

The two are not the first Korean gold medal couple to head down the aisle. Kim Jae-yup, a gold medalist for judo in the 1988 Seoul Olympics, married Kim Kyung-soon, a gold medalist in the Seoul Games for handball.


By Oh Myung-chul JoongAng Ilbo [spark0320@joongang.co.kr]
Log in to Twitter or Facebook account to connect
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
help-image Social comment?
s
lock icon

To write comments, please log in to one of the accounts.

Standards Board Policy (0/250자)