Ansan (Gwangju Women’s University), who became the first Korean archer to win three Olympic gold medals at the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics, won a ticket to the Hangzhou Asian Games to be held in September.
On the other hand, Ki Bo-bae, who won three gold medals in both the 2012 London Olympics and the 2016 Rio Olympics, made her third challenge to participate in the Asian Games, but failed to achieve her goal.
Ansan took second place in the women’s recurve in the 2023 archery national team’s final second evaluation match, which ended at the Wonju Archery Field in Gangwon on the 21st, and went to Hangzhou.
In this evaluation match, 8 national teams of men and women of recurve and compound will participate, and the top 4 players will be qualified to participate in the Hangzhou Asian Games and the 2023 World Championships to be held in Berlin, Germany in July.
Ansan (Gwangju Women’s University) took second place in the women’s recurve event, following 19-year-old terrifying rookie Im Si-hyeon (Korea National Sport University). Kang Chae-young (Hyundai Mobis), who won the women’s team gold medal with Ansan at the Tokyo Olympics, placed third, and Choi Mi-sun (Kwangju Bank), a gold medalist in the women’s team event at the Rio Olympics, rose to fourth place, forming ‘Team Korea’메이저놀이터, the world’s strongest Korean women’s archery team.
However, Ki Bo-bae, who reigned as the leading star of Korean women’s archery in the 2010s, ranked 8th in the final 1st and 2nd evaluation matches in which 8 female national recurve representatives competed.
Ki Bo-bae finished in the top 10 at the 2014 Incheon Asian Games and the 2018 Jakarta-Palembang Asian Games selection round, but this time she also fell off the horse, showing how fierce the competition is in Korean women’s archery, the world’s highest level.
In the men’s recurve, Kim Woo-jin (Cheongju City Hall) took 1st place, followed by Lee Woo-seok (Kolon), Kim Je-deok (Yecheon County Office), and Oh Jin-hyeok (Hyundai Steel) in order from 2nd to 4th to start the hunt for international medals.
All four of these players won the right to participate in the Hangzhou Asian Games by placing 1st to 4th in the final evaluation match in 2022. As the tournament was postponed for a year, they had the misfortune of taking a ‘retest’, but their skills were recognized without any change.
Kim Woo-jin, Kim Je-deok, and Oh Jin-hyeok passed the evaluation match for three consecutive years and will challenge the international competition side by side. They jointly won gold medals in the men’s team event at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and 2021 World Championships held in 2021.
In the men’s compound, Kim Jong-ho, Choi Yong-hee (above Hyundai Steel), Yang Jae-won (Army Army Sports Corps), Ju Jae-hun (Hanul-Uljingun Club), and in the women’s compound, Oh Yoo-hyeon (Jeonbuk Provincial Office), So Chae-won, Song Yun-soo, and Jo Soo-ah (hyundai Mobis) won 1 in order. ∼4th place and go to the Asian Games.
Since compound events are not held in the Olympics, the Asian Games are the best international competition for compound athletes.
The Korea Archery Association holds three national team selection events to select the representative of the year. Then, through two evaluation matches involving only the national team, players will be selected to participate in major international competitions such as the Olympics, Asian Games, and World Championships.
This year’s World Championship will be held in Berlin, Germany from July 31 to August 6, and the Hangzhou Asian Games will be held from September 23 to October 8.