It’s raining world records for Korea!

After the women archers yesterday, the recurve men took the field this morning to compete in the qualifications. They shot 4x36 arrows at distances of 90, 70, 50 and 30 metres. Korea led the team event by a huge margin and eventually took the new team world record. Individually, OH Jin-Hyek broke the 90m world record in the morning. He then went on to score 1386 points to break the FITA round world record in his first World Championships!
  OH Jin-Hyek (KOR)    
Recurve Men Korea’s OH Jin-Hyek had a great start in his first World Championships, scoring 342 points to break the world record at 90 metres (337) by 5 points! OH placed 5th at the World Cup event in Antalya in June and 2nd last month in Shanghai, so it is not a big surprise to find him at the top in Ulsan! Following OH in the individual ranking were his two teammates – both of whom are Olympic team champions from Beijing 2008. At 338, second-place IM Dong-Hyun, winner of the World Cup Final last year, scored above the old world record too. LEE Chang-Hwan completed the Korean trio with 329 points. 

Three archers were tied behind the Koreans at 324 points: Baljinima TSYREMPILOV (RUS), XUE Hai Feng (CHN) and Jean-Charles VALLADONT (FRA), respectively 4th, 5th and 6th. 

The Koreans shot consistently at 70 metres as well and remained in the top 3. OH shot 345 points for a total of 687, 12 points more than his teammates LEE and IM, 2nd and 3rd respectively at 675. OH came only 2 points short of breaking the world record at 70 metres. He was on track to break the FITA round world record! 

More than 10 points separated the third Korean from the first foreign archer, KUO Cheng Wei from Chinese Taipei (662 points). Romain GIROUILLE (FRA) was 5th with 659, followed by Russia’s Bair BADENOV, 6th with 658 points. 

The same archers remained in the top 5 after the following distance (50m), though in a slightly different order. OH stayed in the lead with 1028 points ahead of his two teammates, tied at 1014. 

GIROUILLE scored an excellent 348 to win this distance. With a total of 1007, he overtook KUO for 4th place and was only 7 points short of 3rd place. Another Frenchman was coming back strongly in the rankings: Jean-Charles VALLADONT, 6th with 994 points. Brady ELLISON (USA) made a strong come-back to 7th place. Mangal Singh CHAMPIA (IND), 2008 Olympic champion Viktor RUBAN (UKR) and Matthew GRAY (AUS) completed the top 10 at this point. 

OH won the last distance (30m) with 358 points and finished the competition with a total of 1386, a new world record in his first participation in a World Championships! The previous record of 1379 had been standing since 1 November 2000 and belonged to another Korean archer named OH: OH Kyo-Moon! 

LEE was steady in 2nd place, while IM Dong-Hyun didn’t do so well at 30m with 351 points (32nd place) for a total of 1365. This allowed GIROUILLE to take the 3rd place with 358 points (1365 total-new EMAU record!), a great performance considering that the Frenchman was suffering from the flu! KUO finished 5th (1355), and 20-year-old VALLADONT 6th (1347). CHAMPIA was just behind at 1345, while the first American, ELLISON, scored 1343 to finish 8th.
   
Recurve Men Team With the exceptional performance by the Korean archers, it was no surprise to find Korea at the top of the team ranking after the first distance. France was second after 90 metres, trailing by more than 50 points! Interestingly, the number of points separating Korea from the 2nd was higher than the total separating the nations ranked between the 2nd (France) and the 16th place (Japan). The race for the spots to the next round promised to be tight. 

After two distances, Korea already looked unbeatable with a 90-point advantage, but the fight was on between the next four teams. India overtook France for 2nd place (1947 to 1945), while Chinese Taipei and China (1944) were very close in 4th and 5th, respectively. Poland occupied the last qualifying spot (16th) with 1896, just 2 points ahead of Canada (1894). 

After the lunch break, Korea continued its domination over all the other countries, reaching 3056 after three distances. France and India were neck-and-neck, just as they were in the last distances. This time the Frenchmen took the advantage, outscoring India 2965 to 2954. Chinese Taipei was steady in 4th with 2953, just 1 point shy of 3rd place, while the Ukraine made its entry into the top 5 with 2942 points. China was 6th with 2938. The USA was 7th with the same score as 8th-place Mexico (2919), while Russia was 9th (2915). 

As for the teams fighting to make the cut, Germany was 15th with 2884 points, while Poland dropped from 16th place to 19th, 9 points behind 16th-place Canada; Belarus and Spain, respectively 17th and 18th with 2870 points, could still hope to make a come-back. 

Shooting the last distance, the Koreans were in a class of their own, scoring 4122 points. They broke the former world record (4074) already held by Korea by 48 points!!! 

France scored 4026 to hold the 2nd place they conquered on the previous distance, leaving India in 3rd with 4006 points. Chinese Taipei kept 4th place (4003). The Ukraine and China ended in a tie at 3997 and fought in a shoot-off won by the Ukrainian men. They were followed by Mexico, Russia, Great Britain and the USA, respectively 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th. 

The battle for the team qualifying spots was tighter than ever, with three teams – Canada, Spain and Germany – tying at 3921 for 15th place after 432 arrows! This meant that the three teams would have to shoot a 3-arrow tie-break at 30 metres, the last distance shot. Each archer had to shoot one arrow. The race was dramatic, all three teams starting with 10-10! The last arrow would decide which two teams make it to the next round. Spain managed another perfect 10, while the last Canadian archer shot a 9 to qualify his country over Germany, who only shot an 8. Spain and Canada advance to 1/8 finals! 

Vanahé ANTILLE 
FITA Communication