Ki Bo-bae Reclaims Individual Archery Gold for Korea

Ki Bo-bae Reclaims Individual Archery Gold for Korea

 

Aug. 03, 2012 10:40 KST

 

Ki Bo-bae reacts after her gold win during the individual archery competition at the London Olympic Games on Thursday. /Yonhap

 

Ki Bo-bae won the women's individual archery competition on Thursday (Korean time) by beating Mexico's Aida Roman 6-5 in a shoot-off at Lord's Cricket Ground in London. In doing so, she reclaimed the gold that Korea surrendered to China four years ago in Beijing.

After picking up her first gold in the team event earlier, Ki became the first Korean athlete to win two gold medals at the 2012 London Games. As such, she joins an elite list of decorated Korean archers who have claimed both Olympic titles: Kim Soo-nyung in 1998, Cho Youn-jeong in 1992, Kim Kyung-wook in 1996, Yun Mi-jin in 2000, and Park Sung-hyun in 2004.

The individual competition proceeded unpredictably, with some of the highest-seeded archers including world No. 1 Deepika Kumari of India eliminated in the early rounds.

 

Second-seeded Lee Sung-jin of Korea lost to Mexico's Mariana Avitia in the quarterfinals, and Choi Hyeon-ju was beaten by Berengere Schuh of France 5-6 in the shoot-off in the round of 16.

 

Choi emerged as the biggest star in the team event by shooting four straight 10s in the final, in which Korea beat China by just one point,

Korea began competing in the Olympic archery tournament at the 1984 Games in Los Angeles and kept its stranglehold on the women's individual title for almost a quarter century. However, the individual gold went to China's Zhang Juanjuan at the 2008 Beijing Games when Park Sung-hyun lost to her chief rival by the narrowest of margins, or 109-110.

The team event was inaugurated in the 1988 Games in Seoul, which sparked the beginning of a torrid run that saw Korean women sweep the individual and team events for five consecutive Olympic Games.

But the introduction of a new system in 2010, which sees the winner decided based on the number of sets won rather than just points accumulated, increased the likelihood of upsets. At the same time, other countries have made remarkable progress in closing the gap with Korea in recent years.

Despite the piling-up pressure, however, Korea's women archers proved once again that they are at the top of their game and the best in the world.

 

Source: english.chosun.com

 

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