Hyundai Motor Supports Archery Association for 40 Years
"If I Had Taken Over the Korea Baseball Organization, We Might Have Advanced to the Finals"
At every Olympic Games, archery representatives have achieved excellent results, while among soccer fans, there is a clamor for "Chairman Chung Eui-sun to also take on the role of president of the Korea Football Association." Chung Eui-sun, chairman of Hyundai Motor Group, serves as the president of the Korea Archery Association, and under his full support, national representatives are reportedly able to focus on their training.
On the 28th (local time), the women's team archery event of the 2024 Paris Olympics was held at Les Invalides in Paris, France. On this day, the Korean women's archery team defeated the Chinese team after a shoot-off and won the gold medal. With this victory, Korean women's archery achieved its 10th consecutive Olympic win.
On the 28th (local time), at the archery venue in Les Invalides, Paris, France, Lim Si-hyun (center), who achieved a consecutive 10th Olympic gold in the women's team archery event at the 2024 Paris Olympics, is receiving the gold medal prize from Chung Eui-sun, Chairman of Hyundai Motor Company. [Image source=Yonhap News]
Chairman Chung made a surprise appearance at the awards ceremony. He presented prizes to the representatives, including Lim Si-hyun (Korea National Sport University), Nam Soo-hyun (Suncheon City Hall), and Jeon Hun-young (Incheon City Hall), who served as award presenters, and congratulated them.
Hyundai Motor has been sponsoring the Korea Archery Association for 40 years. From the first chairman Chung Ju-yung to Chairman Chung, three generations have served as presidents of the association, providing full support to Korean archery athletes.
At this Olympics as well, Hyundai Motor applied various advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), computer vision, and robotics to the training grounds to assist athletes' training. It is known that Hyundai Motor's support for domestic archery has exceeded 50 billion won to date.
Automatic shooting unit for archery training developed by Hyundai Motor Group. [Image source=Hyundai Motor Group]
As a result, the existence of the Archery Association has become a source of envy among fans of other sports. On this day, posts calling for Chairman Chung to be invited as president of the Football Association became a hot topic in online communities related to soccer. One netizen said, "Chairman Chung's five-term presidency of the Archery Association is dictatorship," and added, "Therefore, he should be appointed as president of the Football Association."
In response, other netizens commented, "If Chairman Chung's passion had extended to soccer, we wouldn't have missed the Asian Cup finals so often," "I hope he would also work hard in soccer, which is a bigger stage than archery," and "If the management is good, no one would criticize even if he serves four or five terms."
Meanwhile, unlike archery, soccer has experienced ups and downs, failing to qualify for the main tournament in this Olympics. Earlier, the soccer national team drew 2-2 with Indonesia in the quarterfinals of the AFC U-23 Asian Cup held in Doha, Qatar, on April 26, and lost 10-11 in the penalty shootout. This ended South Korea's streak of consecutive Olympic main tournament qualifications over nine editions.
At that time, the Korea Football Association posted an apology on its official website, stating, "We deeply apologize to soccer fans, soccer people, and the public for the failure to qualify for the Paris Olympic main tournament," and bowed their heads, saying, "The coaching staff and players all did their best, but unfortunately, we did not achieve our goal."
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