Another day at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics, and another gold medal for South Korean archery.
On Sunday, it was the women's team coming through with the title, a day after the men's team got the ball rolling with a gold.
The trio of Chang Hye-jin, Choi Mi-sun and Ki Bo-bae beat the Russian team of Tuiana Dashidorzhieva, Inna Stepanova and Ksenia Perova in the final by the set score of 5-1 (59-49, 55-51, 51-51) at Sambodromo.
 |
Park Hae-mook/The Korea Herald |
With a set win worth two points and a draw worth one, South Korea only needed the minimum three sets to win. The country has now won all eight gold medals in the women's team event, which joined the Olympic program in 1988.
The Russians never had a chance, as the South Koreans hit the perfect 10 on five of their six arrows in the opening set. On the other side, Perova opened her final with a 6 to put Russia into a hole.
South Korea is now 2-for-2 in archery so far in Rio, and it'll look to complete an unprecedented gold medal sweep with the men's and the women's individual events remaining.
The women's team gold was one of three medals for South Korea on Sunday.
An Ba-ul won silver in men's -66kg judo. The world No. 1 lost to the 26th-ranked Fabio Basile of Italy by an ippon in the final, a disappointing result considering he had knocked out his biggest nemesis, Masashi Ebinuma of Japan, in the semis.
South Korea has won two silver medals in judo after two days of competition.
The country's first weightlifting medal in Rio was the bronze won by Yoon Jin-hee in the women's 53kg with a 199 kg total (88 kg in snatch and 111 kg in clean and jerk).
She was the silver medalist at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and retired in early 2012 because she grew tired of the competition.
Yoon came out of retirement in 2014 to take another crack at the Olympics, with the prodding of her weightlifting husband, Won Jeong-sik.
On Sunday, Yoon caught a break when Li Yajun, the leader after the snatch, failed in all three clean and jerk attempts, allowing the South Korean to take third place by 2 kg.
So far in Rio, South Korea has two gold, two silver and one bronze medals. South Korea is running fifth in medal standings behind Italy. The U.S. is leading the medal count with three gold, five silver and four bronze medals.
In a men's football match held at Salvador, some 1,600 kilometers north of Rio, South Korea blew a late lead to be held to a 3-3 draw by Germany. With that, South Korea also squandered a chance to clinch a quarterfinals spot with one match remaining.
The fate will be determined in the Group C finale against Mexico on Wednesday in Brasilia.
For the second straight day, swimmer Park Tae-hwan failed to make it out of the heats.
He was 29th among 47 swimmers in the 200m freestyle on Sunday.
He finished last among eight swimmers in the sixth and the final heat. The top 16 qualifiers moved on to the semifinals, but Park, the 2008 and 2012 Olympic silver medalist in that distance, will be on the outside looking in.
South Korea was shut out of a fencing medal for the second straight day. Heo Jun in the men's foil lost his first round match to Cheung Ka Long of Hong Kong 15-8, a day after three female epee fencers failed to reach the podium.
South Korea won six fencing medals, including two golds, at the 2012 London Olympics.
In table tennis, Jeoung Young-sik beat Liam Pitchford of Britain in men's singles and advanced to the round of 16. Jeoung, who entered his first Olympic table tennis tournament as ninth-seed, will face world No. 1 Ma Long of China for a spot in the last eight on Monday. (Yonhap)
