As everyone knows, Korea is the bastion of recurve archery. It is where the best archers in this category have been born out for years. This country has so many high level athletes that they have an extensive selection process that started in November to define the National Team (3 men and 3 women) who will defend the colours of the country at the Beijing Olympic Games in August.
The list of the 16 archers who will be fighting it out for the 6 places in the Korean Team has been issued and is below. This list will then be further reduced in the coming months. The Korean Team will be participating in the World Cup Stages of Porec, Antalya and Boé with 8 archers out of these 16:
| Men | World Ranking | Women | World Ranking |
| Seung Yong LEE | 179 | Sung Hyun PARK | 1 |
| Dong Hyun IM | 2 | Hyun Jung JOO | Not ranked |
| Bo Ram KIM | 125 | Won Jeong KIM | Not ranked |
| Chang Hwan LEE | 25 | Ok Hee YUN | 9 |
| Jae Hyung KIM | Not ranked | Ye Ji KWAK | Not ranked |
| Yong Ho JANG | 30 | Tuk Young LEE | 12 |
| Kyung Mo PARK | 13 | Eun Young CHOI | 4 |
| Myung Soo KIM | Not ranked | Hyun Ju LEE | Not ranked |
Among these names one can find several Olympic and World Champions -both individual and team - as well as World Cup Stages and Final Winners. We also see some new names that we have not seen competing at International level yet. Now it will be a hard battle between those archers with international experience and the ones coming up through the company teams.
Some archers who did not make the list include 2000 Olympic Champion Yun Mi Jin and both 2005 World Champions Chung Jae Hun and Sung Jin Lee (also 2007 Asian Champion). Antalya World Cup 2007 winner Kim Yeon Chul is also missing from the list.
The dream for Park Sung Hyun to be the first woman to win the Olympic Individual medal twice is still alive. Jang Yong Ho could make it for the fourth time in succession which would be an achievement in itself knowing the strength of the Koreans. He could attempt to win a third consecutive team gold medal.
There is no doubt the Korean team will be fearsome once again, whoever the six qualified Olympians!
FITA Communication
2008-01-19
