Ki Bo Bae preparing to defend Olympic title in Rio

At 28 years of age, Ki Bo Bae is a two-time Olympic champion, after winning individual and team golds at London 2012.

To set the scene, the Olympics – an event she describes as “her perfect dream” – in Rio 2016 offer an opportunity to make history. No archer has ever won two individual Olympic titles in a row. But, to get close to that, she needs to get overcome her own inner battle, she says: understanding herself, changing what she doesn’t like and forgetting the “elite status” that she has earned in Korea – a country in which the interest for archery is massive.

“In comparison to many other countries, in Korea everyone is at a high level,” she explains. “Making the team is a hard competition itself as there’s many things going on. Being on the team means honour and pride, but it also brings a lot of pressure as well.”

The pressure of expectation is something she knows well, having been off the Korean team in 2014 and working as a commentator on Korea national television, when she didn’t make the cut for the squad. That year, she says, taught her some tough lessons.

“It was hard not making the team in 2014. I learnt that there was something missing, something I needed to work on,” she confesses. “I had to analyse what, in my mind, wasn’t working. I was not strong and that was the key for the selection shoot we recently had in Korea to make the team for Rio.”

“The mind means everything. That’s where you control it all. If I’m able to beat myself every day, then I can beat anyone… but not before.”

Ki Bo Bae made the team again and regained her position at the forefront of international archery, winning the World Archery Championships in Copenhagen and qualifying for the Archery World Cup Final. She’s back, again, in 2016 with a single-minded goal.

Since it was introduced seven editions ago, in 1988, Korea has never lost the Olympic team title with its recurve women.

In Rio 2016, the team plans to win it an eighth time. Alongside Ki Bo Bae, 2015 Hyundai Archery World Cup Champion Choi Misun and Chang Hye Jin will defend Korean women’s supremacy at the upcoming Olympics.

“We have a really good relationship,” Bo Bae says about her teammates. “Choi and I are from the same university so we have known each other for a while. Chang and I, we’re both the same age. I like to think that we are like sisters.”

Both individually and as team the pressure on the team is huge. Everywhere they go the media, other athletes and fans follow them.

“I prepare to think that we are shooting on the same side even when competing in individual matches as opponents,” Ki adds. “At the Olympics we are thinking more about the team than individually. We go to keep that Olympic gold from previous years in Korea.”

Less than three months is all that stands between the Hyundai Archery World Cup stage in Medellin – the Korean Rio squad’s first outing together – and the Olympics. Three months in which Ki Bo Bae and the entire Korean team will keep working on that mental and physical strength they’ll need to live up to the high expectations upon them.

“Defending the title would be my dream come true. It would make history for me and for Korea, but it brings more pressure as well,” she says.

“Just like me, other people are training to win in Rio, not to lose.”