29 octobre 2007 - Des résultats surprenants aux Championnats Coréens (anglais)

Korean Championships see some surprising results Lausanne – 29 October 2007   The Korean archers just finished their National Championships in Yechong. To qualify for the Korean Championships an archer has to shoot at least one time 1335 points in a FITA Round. In many countries this would cause the championships to be cancelled or the limit to be changed but not in Korea.   Park Sung Hyun    There were 128 participants in the women and 126 in the men category. Despite being Olympic Champion and World Record holder and equalling the 60-metre World Record with 351 points, Park Sung Hyun “only” finished 19th in the Qualification Round totalling up 1366 points. Although she had a close match in the first round with a tie-break at 107 points that she won with 9 points, she quite easily reached the semi-finals. There she met a new archer - Ju Hyun Jung - who has not yet competed at international level. Park shot a good match but was tied again with 114 points. Ju then scored a 10 while her opponent shot a 9, which was not enough for the Olympic Champion to go to the gold medal final.   Ju Hyun Jun was clearly in the zone as she went on to defeat Yun Ok Hee with 113-109. Park took the bronze with a very high score of 115 points in the bronze medal match against Kim Song Yi.   In the Qualification Round 57 women shot 1350 or more and 119 above 1300 points. On the men’s part they were 10 reaching 1350 or more and 103 passing the 1300 barrier. These numbers are just incredible!   Former World Champion Chung Hae Jun was defeated in the 1/32 round and the current World Champion Im Dong Hyun in the 1/16. The latter lost a tie break (113-113) with an 8 against the future winner of the event Lee Sang Hyun who is also unknown on the international scene. Second was Kim Won Sub who was part of the team in the 2001 World Championships in Beijing. Lee Chang Whan, member of the Leipzig Gold Medal Team, took the bronze.   This tournament is part of the selection process for the Olympic Games which will reduce the number of archers to 8 at the end of November. Then it will be further reduced to 4 and then finally to 3 at the very last moment.   However, one thing is quite clear: based on the results of their National Championships, the Korean team will be ready for Beijing, but there could be some new faces…   Tom Dielen FITA Secretary General