Women's Archery, Only One Win Left for Unprecedented 9 Consecutive Olympic Team Titles

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Hyung-min] Our national pride, the women's archery team, is just 'one win' away from achieving the historic feat of winning the Olympic team event for the ninth consecutive time.

The women's national team, consisting of Kang Chae-young (25, Hyundai Mobis), Jang Min-hee (22, Incheon National University), and An San (20, Gwangju Women's University), defeated Belarus, whose team was made up of Karina Ziominskaya, Karina Kazluskaia, and Hanna Marusava, 5-1 (54-52, 57-51, 53-53) in the semifinals of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics women's team event held on the 25th at the Yumenoshima Park Archery Field in Tokyo, Japan, advancing to the finals.

Korea will face the winner of the semifinal match between the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) and Germany at 4:40 PM for the gold medal. If they win, the Korean women's archery team will set a record by winning this event for the ninth consecutive time since it was officially adopted as an Olympic event at the 1988 Seoul Games.

If An San wins just one more time, she will become the first athlete not only in Korea but among all participating countries in this Olympics to achieve two gold medals. Previously, An San won the mixed team event held the day before together with Kim Je-deok (Gyeongbuk High School). She will also become the eighth Korean female archer and the ninth overall among both male and female national teams to win two Olympic gold medals.

Our team started the first set smoothly with An San scoring 9 points, Kang Chae-young 10 points, and Jang Min-hee 9 points, while Belarus scored only 7 points from the start, resulting in Korea taking the first set.

In the second set, our players all shot 10 points on their second arrows, winning 57-51 by a large margin. In the third set, Jang Min-hee's last arrow scored 7 points, tying the set at 53-53, and the set points were shared 1-1, but we secured the victory overall.