Overachieving S. Koreans aim for more Olympic gold

South Korea's Ahn Se-young won the gold medal in the women's singles event in badminton at the Paris Olympics on Monday. The country has now won 11 gold medals and is within reach of matching its record of 13 gold medals in an Olympic Games.

Ahn, the current No.1 in the women's singles category of the World Badminton Federation ranking, defeated He Bingjiao of China 2-0 (21-13, 21-16) to win her first Olympic gold medal. Her win, and Cho Young-jae's silver medal in the men's 25-meter rapid fire pistol earlier in the day, has brought the country's overall medal haul to 26 in this year's Summer Games

The Korean team had already doubled its preliminary goal of winning five gold medals, notching their 10th gold medal by completing a clean sweep in archery Sunday. Korean fans are now expressing hopes for the best-ever performance by the national team, in terms of gold medals.

Korea has been one of the stronger sports nations in Asia, but it has never been considered among the sports elite. But the country so far has surpassed most people's expectations by staying within the top ten countries with the most medals, with roughly two-thirds of the Olympics completed.

This situation has touched off expectations that the Paris Olympics may yield the best results for Korea in its sports history. The country's most prolific medal-producing days have passed -- having already won every gold medal in archery, the sport Korea is by far the most successful in -- but there are still several other fields in which Korea has a real chance of winning a gold.

Historically, Korea has been the most successful nation for taekwondo with 12 gold medals and 22 overall, being where the sport was developed. Korea has sent four athletes to compete in Paris.

The locals have high hopes for Park Tae-joon, the winner of the 2023 World Taekwondo Championships in Baku, to bring home the gold in the men's -58-kilogram event -- which remains among the few events in which no Korean national has never won a gold.

Taekwondo is also the field which handed Korea the biggest disappointment in the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics, which was the first Olympics in which the country failed to win a single gold medal. Lee Da-bin of the women's +67-kilogram class won the country's only silver medal in Tokyo, and is now seeking to climb to the top of the taekwondo world in her second Olympic outing.

Another athlete with high expectations is female weightlifter Park Hye-jeong, who won the title for the +87-kilogram class at last year's International Weightlifting Federation World Championships in Riyadh.

Several other athletes are expected to have a real chance at winning an Olympic medal, and Korea is expected to win at least a few more medals in the remaining events. Its performance already has far surpassed that at Tokyo, where the nation only won two gold medals besides four in archery: one in fencing and one in gymnastics.

The Korean Sport and Olympic Committee, which had expected only five gold medals total in Paris, previously had a grim outlook for this year's Summer Olympics, also fueled by the fact that the nation's delegation to Paris is among its smallest ever.

Though Korea's gymnasts failed to win a gold in this year's event, its fencers have already won two gold medals this year. Adding the five won by the archers and three by the shooters, Koreans are already flying higher than they were ever expected to.

The most gold medals Korea ever won in an Olympics were 13 each in the 2008 and 2012 Olympics. The country finished seventh overall in 2008, and fifth in 2012, in the gold medal rankings.

The highest spot Korea has ever reached was in the 1988 Seoul Olympics, where it won 12 gold medals as the host nation. It also won 33 medals overall, which remains its biggest haul to date.

With Russia out of the running, as it is banned from the Paris Olympics, perennial powerhouses the US and China are currently sitting atop the gold medal rankings, with host nation France in third place. While Korea is unlikely to crack the top five, it is considered to have a fair chance at matching or exceeding its own best performance ever at this Olympics.