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Olympic champions Korea make it three out of three in Medellin

24 juillet 2022

Medellin, Colombia

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Korea's recurve men and women, plus the mixed duo of Chinese Taipei have taken the team gold medals at stage four of the 2022 Hyundai Archery World Cup stage in Medellin, Colombia.

The Tokyo 2020 Olympic Champion trio of Korea's Kim Je Deok, Kim Woojin and Oh Jin Hyek breezed past Spain for gold, 6-0, to take their third, successive stage win in a row.

"It went well, like how we practiced and thanks to two veterans in Oh Jin Hyek and Kim Woojin I could rely on them and then we could [play] our own game here,” said 18-year-old Kim Je Deok.

His trio scored a surprisingly-low 56 in the first set but it was enough to go 2-0 up after Spain could only manage 54. The four dropped point in the first set for Korea was double their entire dropped total from their semifinal victory on Thursday against Netherlands.

“We have done what we have practiced, that’s why we could have the utmost performance in this year's stages," added Oh. "We’ll do better, practice well and show the great performance later on."

After their 56, Korea showed their dominance, shooting a perfect 60 despite a delay to their second round of arrows due to a scoreboard issue. They then followed it up with a 59 to confirm their perfect victory.

“We had some delays in the shoot, but actually we do a lot of practice regarding some things that could happen in the field," said Kim Woojin. "We didn’t panic much, but we did what we practiced, it went well.”

The Korean recurve women celebrate gold in Medellin

Korea's recurve women's team Olympic Champions An San, Kang Chae Young were joined by youngster Lee Gahyun and they also took gold in a 6-0 victory, over Great Britain, putting to bed their seventh place finish at stage in Paris, France last month.

“After we had a little bit of disappointment in Paris, we had practised more and then we tried to be much better than that," said An. "That really helped us to win this stage.”

Lei Chien-Ying and Tang Chih-Chun of Chinese Taipei defeated USA’s Casey Kaufhold and Jack Williams in a shoot-off in the recurve mixed team event. The shoot-off saw three arrows almost directly on the x but a Casey Kaufhold 9 meant it was the Asian duo who topped the podium.

"I’m very happy with our final and winning the gold medal," said Lei, who could have won the game with a final arrow 10 but shot a 9.

"Today’s gold medal is good for my self-confidence for the future.”

Brazil's duo of Ana Luiza Sliachticas Caetano and Marcus D'Almeida caused an upset by beating the Olympic Champions An San and Kim Je Deok to win bronze.

"We feel very good," said D'Almeida. "This girl (Ana Luiza) shot a lot and I just had to do a simple job which was to shoot on the yellow on the last (arrow). I'm very happy with the work of the whole team of everything we worked on. Korea is difficult, but it is not impossible and here we are."

Competition concludes on Sunday with recurve individual medal matches in the afternoon.