Gwangju: South Korea will look to reaffirm its dominance in archery when it hosts the biennial world championships starting this weekend. The southern city of Gwangju will host the World Archery Championships from Friday to Sept. 12. After an official practice Friday, the competition will begin Saturday with the men's team, women's team and mixed team events in compound.
According to Yonhap News Agency, the recurve competition will commence Tuesday with the men's and women's individual and team events, and also the men's team, women's team and mixed team events. All the recurve team finals will be Wednesday, followed by the men's individual final next Thursday and the women's individual final the next day.
South Korea leads all countries with 66 gold medals in world championship history, one more than the United States, while the U.S. has collected more total medals than South Korea, 138 to 119. Compound archery, which allows athletes to use mechanical release aids and magnified sights for added accuracy, will make its Olympic debut in Los Angeles in 2028, with the mixed team event having been added. Compound matches in Gwangju will likely draw extra attention, since this will be the first world championship after the Olympic decision.
Kim Woo-jin, who won the men's individual, team and mixed team gold medals in Paris, will be leading the recurve team once again, joined by his two teammates from the 2024 Olympics -- Kim Je-deok and Lee Woo-seok. Kim Woo-jin is the elder statesman on the team at 33 and is also the highest-ranked South Korean recurve archer at No. 2. The trio will have to contend with rivals from the U.S., Brazil, and France.
On the women's side, world No. 1 Lim Si-hyeon, another triple gold medalist from Paris, will compete alongside two other former Olympians, An San and Kang Chae-young. Lim won the mixed team title at her world championships debut two years ago in Berlin, while An, a Gwangju native, and Kang combined for the women's team gold medals at both the Olympics and the world championships in 2021.
In compound, the men's team will be represented by Kim Jong-ho, Choi Eun-gyu and Choi Yong-hee. Kim is the most decorated member of the team, with eight world titles to his credit. In July this year, the three archers combined for South Korea's first World Cup title in the men's compound team event since 2018.
The women's team is made up of So Chae-won, Han Seung-yeon and Sim Soo-in. So is the only member with prior world championships experience, having grabbed one gold and two bronze medals. The women's team won a World Cup title in June this year.
Gwangju, located 270 kilometers south of Seoul, will be the first South Korean host of the World Archery Championships since Ulsan in 2009. Preliminaries and early knockout matches will be contested at Gwangju International Archery Center, and all the finals will take place at the May 18 Democracy Plaza, built in commemoration of the pro-democracy uprising in 1980.