[Report file] Taegeuk archers who drilled the 'needle hole'... the competition is not over

The national archery competition, which is said to be more difficult than winning an Olympic medal, ended on the 21st (Thursday).

It was the 'Asian Games representative' selection match to be held at the Asian Summer Games to be held in Hangzhou, China in September.

Four men and four men each (recurve) were selected, and among the six Tokyo Olympic members (Ansan, Kang Chae-young, Jang Min-hee, Oh Jin-hyuk, Kim Woo-jin, Kim Je-duk), five of them wore the Taegeuk mark again, and 2016 Rio de Janeiro women's team event gold medalist Choi Mi-sun and 22-year-old rookie Lee Ga-hyun, individual and group silver medalist Lee Woo-seok of the 2018 Jakarta-Palembang Asian Games was selected as the Asian Games representative.

Enlarging an image

▲ Hangzhou Asian Games national archery team (recurve division)

Chaeyoung Kang, Miseon Choi, Gahyeon Lee, Ansan, Jinhyuk Oh, Woojin Kim, Wooseok Lee, Jedeok Kim (from left)

The Asian Games representative selection was held for six months from October last year.

The male division started with 100 people and the female division started with 96 people, and the final 4 people were screened out, so the competition ratio was 25:1 for men and 24:1 for women.

The faces of glory that swept four out of five gold medals in Tokyo, including Ansan, who won three medals at the Tokyo Olympics, and Je-duk Kim, who won two, started all over again from scratch without exception.

The world rankings and the title of Olympic gold medalist had no meaning, and it was an endless competition with the slang word for 'insignia of rank'.

Hye-jin Jang and Bon-chan Koo, who both won two gold medals side by side at the 2016 Rio Olympics, when Korean archery achieved the feat of winning all sports for the first time in history, tried to reclaim the Taegeuk mark, but failed side by side.

Enlarging an image

The final 8 players drilled the 'needle hole' and won the Asian Games tickets, but their competition is not over yet.

This is because eight people, four men and four men each, go to Hangzhou, but two of them have to go home after only completing the preliminary ranking round.

Similar to the Olympics, the Asian Games include men's and women's individual events, team events, and mixed events. In the individual event, only two men and women from each country can participate, and in the team event, three players work together.

Also, in mixed matches, only one team per country can be sent out, one male and one female.

In the end, one male and one female will not be able to compete in any event.

The Korean Archery Association has established the principle of granting participation in each event in the order of results in the Hangzhou Asian Games ranking rounds.

That is, among our players, the player with the best ranking round performance can compete in all three events, including mixed events, individual events, and team events, and compete for up to three gold medals. do.

And the competitor with the lowest performance in the ranking round will not compete in any event.

You might think that it is okay to use all four people in the team event, but the team event in archery is different from the short track relay at the Winter Olympics.

In the men's short track relay at the Beijing Olympics in February, our team participated in the semifinals with Kim Dong-wook and in the finals with Park Jang-hyeok, and five people including Hwang Dae-heon, Kwak Yun-ki, and Lee Jun-seo all climbed onto the podium to win a silver medal.

However, in archery, three people play a team event without changing members.

Of course, it is possible to replace an entry in case of a sudden injury of an existing member, but that is rarely the case.

So, you can't see four people on the podium, and only three medals are prepared for the awards ceremony.

Enlarging an image

▲ 2022 Beijing Olympic Short Track Men's Relay Silver

Medalist Daeheon Hwang, Dongwook Kim, Yunki Kwak, Junseo Lee, Janghyuk Park (from left)

Enlarging an image

▲ Tokyo Olympics men's team gold medal in archery

Enlarging an image

▲ Tokyo Olympics women's team gold medal in archery

It is cruel to have to return home empty-handed without even having a chance to challenge for a medal after suffering so much to go to the Asian Games.

However, the principle of selecting the players with the best sense of competition based on their skill alone has been, and will continue to be, the greatest competitiveness that has supported the strongest Korean archery.

The eight players selected this time will work together to prepare for the Hangzhou Asian Games, while at the same time not slowing down the tension and will continue to compete in good faith.

The Taegeuk archers, who brought great joy and solace to the people exhausted from Corona 19 at the Tokyo Olympics last year, look forward to reliving the glory of Tokyo in Hangzhou.