Korea sweep gold medals in all recurve archery team events

Korea took another gold medal in archery on Friday afternoon, winning the men’s team recurve final for a complete sweep of the recurve team gold medals.

From left: Korea's Kim Je-deok, Oh Jin-hyek and Lee Woo-seok pose on the podium after taking gold in the men's team recurve archery event at the Hangzhou Asian Games in Hangzhou, China on Friday. [NEWS1]

Korea took another gold medal in archery on Friday afternoon, winning the men’s team recurve final for a complete sweep of the recurve team gold medals.

Korea’s Kim Je-deok, Oh Jin-hyek and Lee Woo-seok made short work of India in the final, winning in three sets with a score of 5-1.

Korea took the first set with a perfect 60, easily outpacing India’s 55, before tying the second set 57-57. The scores slipped further in the third set, but Korea’s 56 still beat India’s 55, creating an unbeatable 5-1 lead and cutting the match short at three sets.

Korea edged out China to take the women’s team recurve title earlier on Friday, having beaten Japan in the final of the mixed team recurve contest on Wednesday.

With the three golds, Korea also became the first country to sweep the recurve team medals since mixed was introduced as an event in 2014. Korea earlier swept the team medals in 2010, but at the time there was only the men’s and women’s events.

At this year’s Games, Korea so far have three gold —recurve team events — two silver — mixed team compound and men’s team compound — and one bronze — women’s team compound — in archery.

More medals are likely to follow on Saturday with both the recurve and compound medal events.

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.

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