Who gets the Golds?

With the Olympics upon us, starting today 25th July for the ranking rounds, we thought we would take a brief look at potential Archery medal winners currently being touted for gold.

The men's recurve gold has been widely published in the media (who often know nothing about archery) as going to Mete Gazoz of Turkiye repeating his 1st place from Tokyo. This is the story the press want to tell this year so pinches of salt on standby. He's currently ranked 4th in the world so he has a good shout .. BUT .. To do that he has to get past the man with the moustache, Brazilian Marcus D’Almeida (ranked 1 in the world). Then there are Kim Woojin (ranked 2), Lee WooSeok (3) and Kim JeDeok (9) of South Korea who almost literally cannot be counted out til they have lost, shaken hands, taken their bows apart and are on the way back to their accommodations! Lurking in the shadows .. there's Brady Ellison (7) who will have a chip on his shoulder after the US team taking the disciplinary hit in the World Cup. Looking like a pretty big order for Mete.

The individual Woman's medal is something of Mexican standoff (which might favour one of the ladies). Korean Lim Sihyeon is ranked 2 in the world but doesn’t have the depth of experience to make her a shoo in. Casey Kaufhold from the USA is the current world no 1 but for some reason isn’t getting the pundits love possibly due to the US team being "unsettled" by the World Cup DQ. Mexican Alejandra Valencia (3) and Czech Marie Horáčková (4) are expected to be in there lighting up the scoreboard so this could turn into a real shootout with the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th ranked ladies going head to head. Looking forward to some nail biting one arrow shoot offs to decide this!

The woman's team gold is usually just cast with the Korean flag on the back and handed to the Korean women when they get off the plane - They have 9 gold medals out of 9 times the medal has been shot for. This year might be different. Lim Sihyeon (2), Jeon Hunyoung (21) and Nam Suhyeon (61) are not the most experienced archers and other nations are sensing blood in the water. Korea passed over the highly experienced 6th, 7th and 14th ranked ladies for the second and third members of the team. That includes the three time .. three time ..  three time .. Tokyo gold medal winner An San (14). However, Germany and France are looking very strong and the Chinese hopefully have learned their lesson after so brutalizing their archers in the 2020 trials (20 days continuous competitive evaluation), they fell apart in competition. BUT, you STILL can't count out the Koreans ... Of the top 100 archers in the world, its said that 50 are Korean, the majority of whom don't compete internationally because they can't get into the Korean team**. Korean domestic competition which is professional, is more cutthroat than any international could ever be. The Korean ladies might be inexperienced on the world stage, but they were raised in an environment that would even have Nietzsche going "DAAAAAAMMMN!"

The Men's team might be a little more predictable. With all three Korean men ranked in the top 10 in the world .. Kim Woojin (2), Lee WooSeok (3) and Kim JeDeok (9) .. they might just be too powerful to defeat outside of something out of the ordinary happening. This is compounded (ugly word ;o) with the USA not having a men's team contesting the medal. Japan and the Netherlands have looked good in the run up so hopefully it won't be a relaxing sight seeing holiday stroll around Paris briefly interrupted by some archery practice and a medal ceremony for the Koreans.

The mixed event, which is comparatively new, is less predictable but the edge has to be with the Koreans who can field 2 archers - Lim Sihyeon & Kim Woojin - who are both ranked second in the world. This might be a case of Korea again being too strong even for the highly regarded Germany and Taiwan.

So a solid selection of archers to watch out for. Yes, there are Koreans all over the medal predictions*, because they are always going to be at the forefront of archery competition. But as many of you are aware, nothing is ever certain in archery. A sudden drop in form, nerves or loss of confidence could easily throw a spanner in the compound let alone windy conditions, heavy rain, or consignment of dodgy eclairs in the Olympic village's canteen. This could be the most wide open Olympics for archery in decades if the Koreans are paper tigers ....... but that's a BIG F'ing IF!

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* In case you think we're over inflating the Koreans chances, South Korean archers have won 27 out of 39 gold medals in archery events since 1984.

** “Its harder to make the Korean National Team than it is to win the Olympic gold medal” … Korea Archery.