Indian archery rises and wins 5 gold medals at Nagoya Asian Games; South Korean women's recurve bow fails to win gold medal for the first time

India's 17-year-old talented girl Mohod (middle) defeated South Korea's Oh Ye-jin to win the women's recurve gold medal. (Provided by Nagoya Asian Games Preparatory Committee)

[Reporter Lu Yangxuan/Comprehensive Report] The archery world's most powerful South Korean team suffered a heavy blow from the rising Indian team at the Nagoya Asian Games. The women's recurve event even missed the gold medal in both the team and individual events, becoming the first time in the history of the team in the Olympics and Asian Games. South Korean media believe that India has become South Korea's most powerful threat in the archery event. Some media even described this setback in the women's recurve bow as the "Nagoya Massacre."

India won a total of 5 gold medals in the archery event this year. The women's recurve team defeated South Korea to win the gold. Today in the individual recurve event, India's 17-year-old genius Kumkum Anil Mohod defeated the South Korean ace Kang Chae-young who ranked first in the qualifying round in the 8th. In the gold medal match, she withstood the pressure in the extra shot and defeated South Korea's Oh Ye-jin with a 10-point arrow in the red, finishing second both individually and as a team.

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India finally won 5 gold medals, 2 silver medals, and 2 bronze medals in the archery event, while South Korea won 3 gold medals, 3 silver medals, and 3 bronze medals. Korean media pointed out that South Korean women’s recurve bows had participated in 12 sessions since the 1978 Asian Games when Kim Jin-ho won the gold in the individual competition and the 1982 team competition until the 2023 Hangzhou Asian Games. There has never been an Asian Games without a gold medal. Even in the Olympics, since Xu Xiangshun won the gold medal in 1984 and the team gold medal in 1988, South Korea has never failed to win a gold medal in the women's recurve event in the 11th Olympic Games. This Nagoya Asian Games is the first time in history.

"Chosun Ilbo" pointed out that South Korea's downturn in the archery event in this Asian Games is in sharp contrast to the rise of India. India began to emerge in the compound bow event around 2000, and 10 years ago selected the recurve bow as a "strategic event" to win Olympic medals. It continues to invest a lot of resources, gradually improves training methods with the support of the Tata Group, known as the "Three Stars of India", and cultivates a large number of potential young players. Especially after learning from the development path of South Korean archery, the overall strength has increased rapidly.

Korean media mentioned that in the past, the world archery community has always attributed the competitiveness of South Korean archery to the stable training environment based on corporate teams. India has also begun to use sports teams from public institutions such as the military, police and local governments to increase a large number of professional players. It has also become a huge talent pool. The biggest advantage is that according to information released by the World Archery Association (WA) in April this year, Indians usually start to get into archery with traditional bamboo bows. There are currently about 100,000 bamboo bow shooters. In comparison, as of this year, there are about 2,700 registered archery players in South Korea.