Hyundai Motor’s decadeslong support for Korean archery shines in gold at Olympics

South Korea's female archers continued to rewrite history as they won the Olympic gold medal in the women's archery team event in Paris on Sunday, extending the winning streak to a 10th consecutive title.

Behind the archery team’s efforts, there was Hyundai Motor Group’s unwavering support that began in 1985. The auto conglomerate’s 40-year-long sponsorship of the Korea Archery Association marks the longest for a single sports association here.

Hyundai Motor Group began discussing how to provide support for this year’s Paris Olympics with the KAA after the last Summer Olympics ended in Tokyo in 2021.

The auto giant built an archery stadium, which looked just like the actual playing field at Invalides in Paris, at the Jincheon National Training Center in North Chungcheong Province, for the national archers to practice shooting their arrows in the same setting as they would do in Paris.

Hyundai Motor also developed a shooting machine for personal practice so that each archer could compete with the machine and try to beat the robot. Hyundai Motor and the KAA also supplied the same sound and broadcast systems that were expected to be used at the actual Olympic Games at the national archery team’s practices.

The company rented a sports club about 10 kilometers away from the Invalides stadium to set up a customized practice facility for the national archery team. The archers departed Korea on July 16 and have been practicing at the customized facility since then.

Hyundai Motor secured a lounge some 300 meters away from the Invalides stadium so that the national archers could rest between matches and practices. The automaker supported the KAA to accompany sports psychologists and psychiatrists to help the athletes maintain a stable mental state and high level of concentration during the Olympic Games.

“I want to thank every Korean who watched (the archery team), those who came to cheer on the team here and the athletes who did great with much pressure. They practiced very hard and they did it with determination,” said Hyundai Motor Group Executive Chair Chung Euisun, who attended the women’s archery team event in person. He has served as the president of the KAA since 2005.

“We saw a great result and we think that our job is to support (the athletes) so they can achieve what they want as they can with the best of their abilities moving forward,” he said.