South Korea's Dream Team

Everyone who is reading this site doubtless knows about the brilliance and depth of the South Korean women golfers. They have been raking in the dough and trophies for the last several years, and with new up-and-comers like Futures Tour money leader Jimin Kang and recent Women's Amateur winner Jane Park (a Korean American), the trend shows little sign of slowing. But the Korean women golfers are not the most impressive athletes among Korean females in their respective sport. They are not even close. There is another sport at which Korean women are so dominant, they have won every Olympic gold medal ever contested, in both team and individual competition. That's not an error: every gold medal since the sport joined the Olympics, appropriately at the Seoul Olympics, in 1988. That sport is Archery. And being as how the ladies just competed in Athens last week, I thought it appropriate to send a few kudos their way for another job well done.

The Korean lady archers are well known in Korea, as you can imagine, what with the record they have compiled over the years. And at the top of the heap is the two time Olympic Gold Medalist, Mi Jin Yun. Mi Jin collected both the individual and team gold medal in Sydney, where she came in as the unknown quantity on the team, a 17 year old without a lot of previous notoriety. She repeated the feat in 2003 at the World Championships in New York City. So naturally, Yun was the poster child of this year's Olympic team, even appearing on the cover of the Olympic preview issue of Time's Asian edition. As the games approached, her fan club grew in size and the buzz around her grew to the point that news photographers were even snapping her picture when she would stop in for a bite to eat at McDonald's (an archer at the golden arches?).

So she and her two fellow archers, Sung Hyun Park and Sung Jin Lee, set out for Athens, trying to continue one of the most impressive winning streaks in all of sports.

Korean Archery mega-star Mi Jin Yun

Yun on the cover of Time Magazine

Olympic Archery has two events: individual and team. A team consists of three archers from a country. In individual archery, the competition goes as follows. Each archer shoots a number of arrows called an end. In early rounds, each archer shoots 6 ends of three arrows each (in later rounds it's four ends of three arrows each, but shots alternate). The target is 70 meters away, the bullseye roughly the size of a compact disc. The archer has 40 seconds between each arrow. When one archer finishes an end, the other archer gets to shoot. The archer with the best score wins.

The target has a bunch of concentric circles, with the smallest center circle, the bullseye, being worth ten, the next outer circle 9, then 8, 7, etc.

Players are ranked 1 to 64, and match play occurs until the field is winnowed down to the final champion.

It sounds straightforward, but what really makes it tricky (and fascinating) is that they do this shooting outside. Unlike shooting with bullets, arrows have a noticeable arc when shot that must be taken into account. Add onto that the effect of wind on the arrow's flight (not to mention on the archer herself), and you have a whole lot of variables to contend with. Yet time and again, they put these arrows within the 8, 9 or 10 point circles. It's pretty extraordinary.

High tech training: this virtual reality
simulation helps the ladies hone their
skills even further

Let's see... One, two, three...

The competition in Athens this week was particularly memorable because it took place at Panathinaiko Stadium. This was the stadium built for the very first modern Olympic games in 1896. While it is a beautiful spot to compete, it also proved to be very treacherous. The stadium's shape caused winds to funnel down onto the field, and produced much more variable and tricky conditions than the competitors were used to. But they all had to deal with the same conditions, so it was certainly fair.

First came the individual competition. Mi Jin Yun, as mentioned previously, was the favorite to repeat her gold medal performance from Sydney. But she ran into some trouble and was upset in the quarterfinals by a Taiwanese archer. That left the other two Korean women archers to pick up the slack, and they did not disappoint. Sung Jin Lee did struggle somewhat, also in the quarterfinals, also against a Taiwanese archer, but eked out a one point win to advance. Eventually, the two Koreans met in the gold medal match.

Sung Hyun Park in Panathinaiko stadium

Korea goes one-two in the women's
individual Archery competition. That bush on
Lee's head looks quite formidable!

This match was shown on CNBC, and I happened upon it quite by accident. It was a riveting matchup. Coming into the final end, though, Lee had seemingly wrapped everything up by grabbing a three point lead on her opponent. But then Park went to work. She gradually chipped away during the last end, until, with one arrow remaining, they were tied at 100. Park went first, lined up her bow, and nailed a bullseye for ten points! Now the pressure was on Lee to respond, but she only managed an 8. Thus, the entire competition for the gold came down to one arrow. That's got to be similar pressure to having a putt to win the US Women's Open, as Se Ri did in 1998. Or perhaps even more pressure, especially for Lee, who knew she had to hit a perfect shot just to stay in the match. Imagine having to make a 40 foot putt to stay in the US Women's Amateur in the final match.

In any event, the Koreans went one-two, with Sung Hyun Park collecting the gold medal and Sung Jin Lee the silver.

Later in the week, the Korean women competed in the team event. As you can imagine, they romped through the field, and made it to the gold medal match, where they had to face China. Well, that match turned out to be a very close nail biter indeed. Despite Korea having the current individual gold medal winner, the current individual silver medal winner, and the previous Olympics' individual gold medal winner, China kept it close right until the end.

Finally, Park, this year's gold medalist, stepped up for her last three arrows. She needed 27 points to clinch the win, but hit a 9 followed by an 8. That meant she needed a bullseye to claim the title outright for the Koreans. An 8, and they would lose for the first time ever. Could she do it? Hey, is Kimchi spicy?

Yep, for the second time in the Olympics, a women's archery gold was decided with a single arrow. And for the second time, Park was the one who delivered that arrow, right into the bullseye, just like in the individual gold medal match. Talk about clutch. China had put up a great fight, but in the end, the Koreans had yet another team gold. One wonders what might happen in Beijing, site of the next Olympics in 2008? But in the meantime, the Korean Archery Dream Team could bask in their success in Athens. Though now it will probably be harder than ever for them to enjoy a cheeseburger in peace!

Teamwork: during the team competition, the ladies use various
high tech doodads to gauge how to deal with the
conditions in the stadium

Success! The South Korean ladies win again!
(left to right: Mi Jin Yun, Sung Hyun Park, Sung Jin Lee)