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Peter Jones

Dominating South Koreans are not invincible


Britain's archers have an excellent chance of winning individual and team medals, but the South Koreans will be the ones to beat in Beijing when the competition gets underway on Saturday.

Archery accounted for three of the nine gold medals South Korea won in Athens four years ago, and they have a deep pool of talented archers who are all more than capable of winning medals.

Athens gold medalist Park Sung-hyun and 12-arrow world record holder Yoon Ok-hee will lead the South Korean women's squad, while the men's team will include Im Dong-hyun, the reigning world champion.

South Korea's Im Dong-hyun

South Korea have won 14 of the 22 archery Olympic golds on offer since the 1984 Los Angeles Games, with the women taking 11 and men winning three teams titles.

The women are phenomenal - winning the individual gold at every Olympics since '84, and every team title since the Seoul Games in '88.

The men are becoming increasingly dominant themselves, having won the team titles in Sydney 2000 and Athens four years ago, though no South Korean has won the men's individual gold.

That said, Im Dong-Hyun is expected to put an end to that, as favourite for the men's gold in Beijing.

So why are the South Koreans so good?

Probably because of extensive preparation, coupled with state-of-the-art training techniques.

Training is only part of the equation though and some of the Korean archers believe they have physiological, mental and spiritual traits that set them apart from the rest.

Yoon Ok-hee recently told an interviewer she believed that Korean women were dextrous due to heightened sensitivity in their fingers, making them more adept at "feel" sports such as archery.

That theory may also go some way to explaining why South Korea continues to produce an abundance of top-class women golfers.

Oh, and it is not just the archers that are world class - the coaches aren't bad either!

Indeed, Britain hired a world class Korean coach three years ago, and there is no doubting that Peter Suk, as the national Head Coach, has had a massive impact.

Just ask the six British archers preparing to take part in the Olympics.

So yes, South Korea will dominate the Olympic archery tournament, of that you can be sure.

But thanks to our own South Korean influence, British archers will be there or thereabouts when the competition gets down to its final stages.

Oh, and the South Koreans are not invincible - Britain has beaten them in team competitions this year. Now let's hope they do it when it really matters, in Beijing!

Peter Jones is a member of the sports team at BBC World and media adviser to archery's UK governing body, the GNAS - or Archery GB. Our FAQs should answer any questions you have.


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  • 1. At 00:45am on 06 Aug 2008, JimmyMac5555 wrote:

    Peter Jones asks "Why are the South Koreans so good?". Well, how about 'the Qi', and the secret training Techniques of the Chinese and Asian athletes - Qigong Energy Cultivation.

    China, and the ‘East’ have long been known for their understanding of a mysterious, fascinating and remarkable unseen force and energy. They call it Qi (also called Chi, and pronounced ‘Chee’). Qigong means ‘Cultivating Energy’. It has not been mentioned in any article about the Games that I have read in the last 6 months, but because of it Chinese and Asian Athletes at the Olympic Games promise to win Gold Medals in record numbers. It is the one thing they don’t want you to know about.

    Qigong is based on an understanding of the human energy system, now familiar in the West through Acupuncture, which the Chinese have held as one of their most important treasures. This may seem to constitute an ‘unfair advantage’, but Qi/Energy is natural, free and available to everyone - all you need to know is how to do it.

    It could be that the world’s media organizations gathered in Beijing, all 5,600 of them, ask the simple question of their Chinese hosts “What is Qigong?”, and get a whole array of answers and non-answers.

    It could be the gift and legacy of the 2008 Games is that Qigong is finally released into the world.

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  • 2. At 9:41pm on 13 Aug 2008, Crowperson wrote:

    Bravo Peter, finally a positive posting to a BBC Olympics blog, complementary about both Team GB and our opponents.

    I'm not so sure about the standard of judging when related to the Chinese exhibitionists, but at least with the archery the results are not as subjective and the stunning British display yesterday was definitely a tribute to Suk's influence. I am tempted to try archery myself as a result of seeing Folkard's prowess in advancing to the last 16.

    I also agree with JimmyMac. A positive mental attitude, represented in different cultures by different ideals, has helped Michael Phelps and hindered the sore loser Katy Hoff (you could see it in her face) in her quest for gold scotched by Adlington and now Pelligrini. Call it what you will, Olympic participation is taxing both physically and mentally, and once we in Britain start to cheer our team rather than slag it off, we can hope to score many more medals than we have done previously. Taking an optimistic view, we have had a medal a day already, and in events we don't normally do so well at.

    That's what I call QiGong, and perhaps the BBC coverage, which has been increasingly nasty from competitors, commentators and contributors to blogs and public discussion forums, can begin to focus on the positive and not the negative.

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