9 August 2008 - Korea on track for sixth consecutive gold

Korea on track for sixth consecutive gold  Beijing - 9 August 2008   The Korean women are on track to win a sixth consecutive gold medal in the team competition at the Olympic Green Archery Field on Sunday 10 August. PARK Sung-Hyun (KOR), YUN Ok-Hee (KOR) and JOO Hyun-Jung (KOR) claimed the individual top three positions.   Favourites   Ø      Korea is favoured to win gold, having broken the 216-arrow Olympic record with a combined score of 2,004 points in the ranking round on Saturday. Their previous record of 1,994 was set at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. Ø      Korea's dominance in the ranking round was highlighted by PARK Sung-Hyun (KOR), YUN Ok-Hee (KOR) and JOO Hyun-Jung (KOR) claiming the individual top three positions. Ø      Korea has won every gold medal that has been contested since the team competition was introduced at the Seoul 1988 Olympic Games.       PARK Sung-Hyun (KOR)   YUN Ok-Hee (KOR)   JOO Hyun-Jung (KOR)   Challengers   Ø      Great Britain was in third place for the majority of the ranking round but passed China on the second to last end to claim the number two seed. Alison WILLIAMSON (GBR) and Naomi FOLKARD (GBR) contributed significantly to the combined team score with individual placements of seventh and eighth place respectively. Ø      The leader of the Chinese women's team, ZHANG Juan Juan (CHN), struggled in the ranking round on Saturday finishing in 27th place. China may still get the gold medal rematch against Korea they are hoping for as the two nations are seeded in different brackets.  At the Athens 2004 Olympic Games, Korea beat China on the last arrow for gold.   Others   Ø      Poland, the 2008 European women's team champions, is seeded in fourth place following the ranking round finishing 96 points behind Korea. Ø      Japan, Chinese Taipei, Italy and Columbia will now compete to determine which of the two teams will advance to the quarterfinals. The other six teams have earned a bye into the quarterfinals.   ONS jf/skh/jg/sig/rw