Lee Woo Seok bests Kim Woojin in Shanghai, leads head-to-head record 3-2

Lee Woo Seok shot an eight with his final arrow to beat teammate Kim Woojin in an uncharacteristically loose recurve men’s final at the second stage of the 2019 Hyundai Archery World Cup in Shanghai, China.

It was the fifth international meeting between the pair and, including this match, Woo Seok has won three of them.

“I didn’t really think I was ready for this event, I wasn’t shooting good, but I’m happy the result was good,” said Woo Seok. “I feel about 60%. I’m satisfied with the gold but I still have much to improve, including the balance in my technique and stopping arrows going left and right. But I’ll work on that and I’ll be better.”

Woojin has won the World Archery Championships twice in his career, in 2011 and 2015.

Woo Seok, who is only in his second season as a regular on the Korean team, is already ranked number one in the world largely thanks to a 2018 season that saw him climb the podium at every event in which he competed.

And while he now leads the head-to-head record against his experienced teammate, three wins to two, it’s in the largest moments that Woojin has pulled through.

Kim beat Lee in the gold medal matches at both the Asian Games and the Hyundai Archery World Cup Final in 2018.

“Even if he’s my teammate, I treat the match like any other, as if he was a competitor from another country,” said Woojin, who turned the focus towards his next major international.

“I will try my very best at the world championships and I’m looking forward to showing you how well I can perform.”

Both he and Woo Seok will look to showcase a better standard of archery at this year’s Hyundai World Archery Championships in ’s-Hertogenbosch.

Woojin started the final in Shanghai with seven and an eight and, although he did find the middle a few times afterwards, there was another eight in the fourth set. A 9.00-point arrow average is not what we have come to expect from the only recurve archer to have broken 700 on the 72-arrow ranking round.

Both Kim and Lee were outshone in the finals arena by Brady Ellison, who shot 29, 30 and 30 points to take bronze in three sets.

It is the second consecutive stage of the Hyundai Archery World Cup at which Kim, Lee, Ellison and Sjef van den Berg have made the recurve men’s final four – and at which Sjef has finished fourth.

The second stage of the 2019 Hyundai Archery World Cup took place on 6-12 May in Shanghai, China.