Korea reels from shock Rio defeats

Published : Aug 9, 2016 - 18:33 Updated : Aug 10, 2016 - 17:31

Monday was barren day for South Korea at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics, with a handful of medal contenders unable to deliver on expectations.

With no medals won Monday, South Korea remained stuck at two gold, two silver and one bronze. The country has set out to grab at least 10 gold medals and finish in the top 10 in the medals table for the fourth consecutive Olympics.

South Korea is now eighth in the medal standings. The U.S. led the medal standings for the second straight day with five golds, seven silvers and seven bronze medals. China is in second place with five golds, three silvers and five bronze medals.

The most surprising loss came on the archery range at Sambodromo, where world No. 1 Kim Woo-jin suffered a shock defeat to Riau Ega Agatha of Indonesia in the second round of the men’s individual event.

South Korean archer Kim Woo-jin lowers his bow Monday as he is defeated by Riau Ega Agatha of Indonesia in the second round of the men`s individual event during the Rio de janeiro Olypics. (Park Hae-mook/The Korea Herald)

Kim helped South Korea to the team gold medal on Saturday and set a 72-arrow world record with 700 points in Friday’s ranking round. But those feats already seemed to be distant memories, as the heavily favored Kim looked uncharacteristically shaky against Ega Agatha. In one stretch, Kim shot three consecutive 8s.

Ega Agatha’s winning score was 6-2 (27-29, 28-27, 27-24, 28-27). In the set system, each set consists of three arrows. A set win is worth two points and a draw is worth one point. The first archer to reach six points wins the match.

South Korea’s drought in fencing continued for the third day, as defending Olympic sabre champion Kim Ji-yeon lost her round of 16 match to Loreta Gulotta of Italy by 15-13.

Two other South Korean sabre fencers, Seo Ji-yeon and Hwang Seon-a, were also knocked out early on Monday.

In men’s judo, An Chang-rim, the world No. 1 in the 73 kilogram class, couldn’t even get past the round of 16, falling to Dirk van Tichelt of Belgium by waza-ari (half a point).

On the women’s side, Kim Jan-di also lost in the round of 16 in the 57 kg, with Rafaela Silva of Brazil getting the better of her.

South Korea had set out to capture at least two judo gold medals in Rio, but it’s sitting at two silver medals after three days.

The country’s table tennis players also dropped out of contention. In the men’s singles, Lee Sang-su lost to Adrian Crisan of Romania 4-3 (9-11, 13-11, 5-11, 10-12, 12-10, 11-6, 13-11) in the third round.

Jeoung Young-sik went up against the men’s world No. 1 Ma Long but lost 4-2 to the Chinese (6-11, 10-12, 11-5, 11-1, 13-11, 13-11).

The world No. 12 from South Korea actually won the first two sets, but Ma quickly won the next two sets.

In the fifth frame, Jeoung went ahead 7-5 before losing 13-11.

In the sixth set, Jeoung opened up an 8-4 lead, but the Chinese fought back to win the set 13-11 and take the match.

In the women’s singles, Jeon Ji-hee made it to the round of 16 before falling to Yu Mengyu of Singapore 4-1 (12-10, 8-11, 12-10, 11-7, 11-2). Suh Hyo-won lost to Cheng I-Ching of Taiwan 4-3 (11-5, 11-9, 11-3, 4-11, 5-11, 9-11, 11-7) in the same stage.

Suh dropped the first sets but won the next three to draw even -- only to lose the seventh set and the match.

In the final South Korean action of Monday, the women’s volleyball team lost to Russia in the preliminaries, dropping to 1-1 in Pool A.

Russia prevailed 3-1 (25-23, 23-25, 25-23, 25-14). The teams were locked in a tight battle early on, but South Korea had no answer against the Russian onslaught in the fourth set. (Yonhap)