Kim Woo-jin wins men's individual archery title for 3rd gold in Paris

PARIS -- Kim Woo-jin captured the men's individual archery title Sunday for his third gold medal of the Paris Olympics, giving South Korea a clean sweep of archery gold medals in the process.

Kim defeated Brady Ellison of the United States in a shoot-off in the final at Invalides in Paris and became the second triple gold medalist for South Korea at the ongoing Olympics, joining fellow archer Lim Si-hyeon.

Kim previously won the men's team and mixed team gold medals in Paris, while Lim also went 3-for-3 in the women's individual, women's team and mixed team events.

With five career gold medals, Kim also became the most decorated South Korean Olympian, breaking a tie with three others.

He is the third South Korean man to win an Olympic individual title, joining Oh Jin-hyek in 2012 and Gu Bon-chan in 2016.

In individual archery matches, each archer takes three arrows per set, and the one with the higher score earns two points for a set win. A tie is worth one point. The objective is to score six points first. If a match is tied after five sets, archers go to a single-arrow shoot-off.

Ellison, the 2016 Olympic individual bronze medalist, won the opening set over Kim 29-27, with the South Korean hitting an 8 with his second arrow.

Kim won the next set 28-24 to tie the score at 2-2, shooting a pair of 10s to sandwich another 8. Ellison went 9-8-7 with his three arrows.

Ellison pushed Kim to the brink with a 29-27 win in the third set, grabbing a 4-2 lead. But Ellison gave Kim an opening by hitting an 8 with his second arrow of the fourth set, and Kim hit a 10 with his final arrow to take the set and tie the score at 4-4.

With the gold medal on the line, the two veterans, with a combined eight Olympic appearances between them, both put up a perfect 30 in the fifth set, a spectacular display befitting the grand stage of the last archery final in Paris.

A shoot-off would determine the color of their medals. Going first, Kim hit a 10 slightly to the left of dead center. Ellison followed with a 10 of his own, but Kim's arrow was ruled closer to the center.

South Korea also won all archery gold medals up for grabs in 2016, but the mixed team event was not yet a part of the competition. When the mixed event was added for Tokyo in 2021, South Korea won four out of five gold medals, missing out on the men's individual title.

Earlier Sunday, another South Korean archer, Lee Woo-seok, won the bronze medal after beating Florian Unruh of Germany in the third-place match. Lee lost to Kim in the semifinals to drop to the bronze medal contest and salvaged his first career individual medal.

Kim became the fifth athlete to win at least three gold medals in Paris. With Kim and Lim, South Korea is the only nation with two triple gold medalists at this Olympics so far. (Yonhap)