Archery world records broken
July 27, 2012
South Korean archers broke two world records at a rain-soaked Lord's cricket ground in London on Friday, hours before the Olympic opening ceremony.
Im Dong-yun broke the 72-arrow individual world record with a score of 699 in the men's ranking round, and combined with teammates Oh Jin-hyek and Kim Bub-min to set a new team world record of 2,087.
"It's only the first round so I won't get too excited about it," said Im, who suffers from myopia and is legally blind. The 26-year-old can only see a spot of yellow 70 meters away when aiming.
Im was ranked number one in the world before being overtaken by American Brady Ellison in 2011. Ellison and his teammates were the top ranked team heading into the tournament, and remain favorites for gold.
"Korea are always top of the ranking round, they're a great team, so we kind of expected them to be on top," Ellison said. "But we're shooting good and having fun and that's what we came here to do."
South Korea coach, Jang Young-sool, was pleased with the results, but remained focused on the competition. "You can't really expect to break the world record but it's not a big shock or surprise," he told the Reuters news agency. "It was good scoring conditions today, we'll just rest and then get ready for the team competition tomorrow."
Kim Soo-nyung, a four-time Olympic gold medallist in the women's competition, said the weather conditions were ideal for a high scoring affair. "They might have expected to shoot well because it's a little bit cloudy and a little bit rainy, this weather is so nice to shoot in," she said. "Most world records are set in this kind of weather."
The South Korean men's team have won three team gold medals at the last three Olympic games, but never an individual gold medal.
dr/jm (Reuters, AFP, dpa)