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Lim Sihyeon wins individual gold as Korea almost completes the clean sweep

03 août 2024

Paris, France

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Lim Sihyeon won the women’s individual title at Paris 2024 this Saturday, as her Korean teammate Nam Suhyeon finished with silver and France’s Lisa Barbelin took bronze.

Lim, the top seed, defeated teammate Jeon Hunyoung in the semifinal 6-4 and Nam in the final 7-3, before Barbelin prevented a Korean clean sweep by beating Jeon to the bronze medal and a first ever individual women’s Olympic medal for France.

“Since last year, I’ve been dreaming of this moment,” said Lim. “I wanted to put on a performance and a result and I put a lot of effort into doing it. I’m so grateful and happy for this. I made Korea proud in France.”

“To be honest, it feels like a bonus because I already won two gold medals, including the mixed team. So this time I really wanted to enjoy the competition,” she added.

With all three Koreans in the last four, the fear had essentially evaporated.

“It’s not like I was extra nervous because I met my teammate. But in the semifinal I met Hunyoung and we were saying, ‘One of us will get the medal, so it’s OK.’”

It is the first time in 20 years that Korean women have taken both individual gold and silver, since Park Sung-Hyun and Lee Sung Jin did so at the Athens 2004 Olympic Games.

Recurve women’s podium at Paris 2024 Olympic Games.

By late afternoon, all three Korean women had navigated their way to the semifinals without too much incident, and a clean sweep of the podium did not look impossible.

The large number of Mexican fans in the stands had almost pulled Alejandra Valencia in there too, who took Lim to 4-4 in the noisiest quarterfinal yet seen at the Invalides arena. But Alejandra opened with an eight in the last end, and Sihyeon got the job done with room to spare.

Barbelin, roared on at every opportunity by the home crowd, had a lucky break in the quarterfinals, when, on the ropes against Diananda Choirunisa, somehow the Indonesian pushed her fifth set arrow into the five, when a mere eight would have been enough to win.

Her shoot-off arrow wasn’t much better. Barbelin’s was a ten, and the home crowd favourite was in the last four. But in the semifinal, the Frenchwoman could not make a dent in Nam Suhyeon.

The other semi would be Lim vs Jeon, using for the first time at an Olympics the Korean dark ‘away strip’ for the athlete on target two. Lim just edged out Jeon in a serene, precise battle.

The all-Korean final of Lim against Nam proceeded similarly, but Lim had hit a groove, while Nam seemed to tighten up slightly. Nam pushed back a little in the third, but as both traded eights in the fourth, Lim got the final job done.

Lim becomes the new Olympic Champion, and the second archery athlete to take three medals at a single Olympic Games after An San. Apart from the final, she did not look unbeatable or dominating, but as so often the way, the Korean archer always found just enough to get it over the line.

Lim and Nam seemed entirely relaxed about their relative positions on the podium.

“She feels more like a sister than a friend,” Nam said of Lim.

Jeon, who won a team gold on Sunday with Lim and Nam, was equally serene about her fourth place individual finish.

“The mission was always to get the team gold. Anything else is the cherry on the top.”

“I’m already proud of being here already. I’ve been incredibly lucky to be here, at these Olympics, and we gave it everything. So no regrets at all,” she smiled.