Korean Team At The Tokyo Olympics

We recently experienced the long-awaited Olympic Games in Tokyo, where many new athletes shined, however, the triumph obtained by South Korea in the archery competition was undeniable and some were already betting on this team as the most difficult to dethrone due to the history they have been writing in this competition since its inception, in addition, in the previous Games that took place in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), Korea won all the gold medals in the four categories, two for women (individual and team) and two for men (individual and team).

In Tokyo a new category was added, mixed team, as a result, the Koreans achieved a total of 4 gold medals, unfortunately in the men’s individual category none of them managed to qualify for the eliminations. It sounds a little confusing, but in summary, all the archers compete and depending on their results, they advance to the elimination round; for the teams, the same results of the individual classification are used, that is, their scores are added to know if they managed to pass.

Photo by 2021 Getty Images

Obviously, the team was betting on the 5 medals and although they missed one of them, all the media highlighted the impeccable work they did, in addition to the fact that women have never lost both the individual and team medals since 1904, that is since they began to include them as part of the Olympic competition.

Representing the men’s team were Kim Woo Jin, Kim Je Deok, and Oh Jin Hyek; on the women’s team we found An San, Jan Min-Hee, and Kang Chae Young; in the women’s individual competition we had An San and in the mixed team category were An San and Kim Je Deok.

Photo by Chris Wells

Although it is quite evident the high level that all the competitors have, it is still curious how the Koreans do have an almost perfect record, do they have a secret formula? Do they do something different in the way they train? Well, as the Olympic archer Iria Grandal said at the London 2012 Olympic Games: in Korea, they train up to 9 hours a day, archery becomes a job. Of course, in terms of budget, they have enough and their facilities are not a game, moreover, from a very young age, they start training in schools because there they have the appropriate complexes and they can belong to sports leagues, which later become the door to be able to earn scholarships or be part of the Olympic team.

There are many archers, with excellent skills, ready to compete and make their country proud at any time, let’s take An San as an example, at only 21 years old she is already an Olympic champion in all archery categories. We still have to wait for the results of the upcoming Olympic Games, after all, new stars are born every year, and there are still many competitions left in which they will have to prove what they are made of and defend their title.