The ‘world’s strongest’ Korean women’s recurve archery team suffered a shock exit in the first round of the Berlin 2023 World Archery Championships.
The South Korean team, comprised of Lim Im-hyun (Korea Gymnastics University), An An (Gwangju Women’s University), and Kang Chae-young (Hyundai Mobis), fell to Indonesia 3-5 (54-55 59-52 51-53 56-56) in the women’s team round of 16 on day three of the competition in Berlin, Germany.
This ended the Recurve team’s goal of winning back-to-back all-around titles.
It was the first time a country had won the entire recurve event since Turin 2011, when the addition of mixed events increased the total to five gold medals in both recurve and compound.
After performing well in qualifying the day before, the Koreans skipped the first round of 24 and went straight to competing in the round of 16, where they lost their first run.
The Indonesian women’s team has been coached by South Korean Park Young-gul since this year.
The Recurve team cruised in the other events of the day.
Kim Woo-jin (Cheongju City) and Lim Si-hyun secured the silver medal in the mixed event.
The duo defeated Ukraine in the round of 16 and Kazakhstan in the quarterfinals before defeating the Italian team of Mauro Nespoli and Tatiana Andreoli 6-0 (37-36 38-35 38-33) in the semifinals.
Kim Woo-jin and Lim Shih-hyun will play for gold against Germany’s Florian Unruh-Michelle Kroppen, who reached the final after defeating Chinese Taipei’s Tang Hsiu-jun and Lei Jian-ying in a shootout 5-4 (38-35 36-38 33-37 38-37 <+18-18>).
Elimination in the women’s team event could have certainly dampened the spirits, but Kim Woo-jin, the oldest member of the Korean 카지노사이트 recurve team at 31 years old, and Lee Im-hyun, the youngest of the women’s players, shot well to turn things around.
The men’s team of Kim Woo-jin, Lee Woo-seok (Kolon), and Kim Jeduk (Yecheoncheon) also cruised to the semifinals.
The men’s team defeated Brazil in the round of 16 and then swept India 5-1 (55-49 57-57 55-53) in the quarterfinals to reach the semifinals.
South Korea will face Italy in the men’s team final.