The men’s team gold medal match between France and Korea was perhaps the noisiest Olympic final yet staged; with fans from both countries filling the Invalides arena to capacity. Every big arrow was cheered to the skies from one side or the other.
From their first appearance earlier in the day, you knew that the Korean men had turned on gold medal mode, and so it proved. There were no doubts, no wobbles.
But in the first end of that final battle, France matched Korea almost arrow by arrow, splitting the set 57-57. They were the only team to really go toe-to-toe with them all day.
Kim Je Deok, Kim Woojin and Lee Woo Seok then showed their ability to step up as champions: they opened the second end with three tens and France could not quite respond. The men in white shot an unanswerable 59, although France delivered a equally impressive 58, as if to say; we’re still here, and we’re not going anywhere.
But Baptiste Addis, Thomas Chirault and Jean-Charles Valladont had already proved their point that day with exceptional scoring and closing in every match. Their gold medal match ends of 57, 58, and 56 would likely have seen off anyone on the field all day – except Korea.
“We are really proud of about the final because we knew it would be difficult to match because the current Korean team is very strong, and we knew it,” said Chirault afterwards.
“To enjoy the moment, and to produce archery the way we know how to, the way we’ve worked on a lot this year – they were all today’s key words.”
“We’ve achieved all our goals. There’s no word to describe sharing this beautiful silver medal. We are very proud of the team we’ve brought today.”
It was one of the most well-deserved archery Olympic medals – and it was masterminded by a Korean. The former national head coach Oh Seon Tek joined the French setup in 2022 in the build-up to Paris.
“For the French team, he arrived with his culture, with his experience. And this changed a lot of things for us,” explained Chirault. “The whole system was reshuffled, if you like, in preparation of Paris, 2024. We created a collective very strong, very united with a new approach to archery. It was something new for us in Europe.”
“And I think now France can really compete with the highest nations, the strongest nations in archery in the world. We’ve seen it today. We’ve seen it in these games, today.”
As so often in team play, the opening and closing positions are critical. Central to the effort was France’s closer Addis, who put just a single arrow out of the ten ring all day. Just 17 years old, he was the youngest member of France’s entire Olympic delegation, and quit school this year to focus on preparing for the Games.
“I’m the youngest in the team, it’s my first Olympic medal,” said Addis. “I’m really happy to have worked with this team, we worked really hard. And now we can see the results.”
The medal is the first French Olympic archery medal since Valladont‘s individual silver at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, although France has an Olympic archery medal collection that goes back more than a century.
“We had Olympic medals in the past, which shows that we know what to do,” said Addis.
“I’m very happy to have done that with the team we’ve built over the past year. We gave it everything. That gave us huge satisfaction, especially me.”
“We can be proud of what we did.”
