KI Bo Bae has shot at first gold since 2012

Three years after she won Olympic gold and Tokyo 2012, Korea’s KI Bo Bae has another shot at the top spot on the podium. She last competed in a final at the Archery World Cup stage in Wroclaw in 2013, but left with silver. 

Last season, Bo Bae did not make the Korean team. She spent the year acting as an analyst for Korean television, saying the experienced allowed her to re-evaluate what she needed to do on the competition field and return with the fire to win. 

The fourth seed at Antalya 2015, she made her way through the eliminations to claim a well-deserved finals berth. 

“Archers from all around the world seem to have improved a lot,” admitted Bo Bae, grinning from ear to ear at the prospect of another medal match. “It made me feel a little… threatened.”

“No match is an easy match. I came up against my Korean teammate and Karina WINTER. I was particularly nervous shooting against Karina but I managed to pull through.” 

Bo Bae beat WINTER for Shanghai bronze at the first stage of the season and dispatched the German athlete in four sets during the fourth round in Antalya. She took her match with KANG Chae Young, triple gold medallist in Shanghai, the same distance. 

During the four matches she shot, KI scored below 27 points for a three-arrow set just once. She was, unlike her personality, clinical. 

“I’ve been able to reset my mind set to before the break and it’s given me the drive to shoot even better than before.” 

Bo Bae also beat three-time World Cup Final silver medallist Deepika KUMARI from India in the semifinals. 

The match was drawn heading into the last set, where the Korean dropped two 10s and a nine to her opponent’s 28 points. KUMARI’s 2015 has started far better than her 2014, when she was completely out of form until the last stage of the season. 

“Winning the gold in Antalya would be such a confidence booster ahead of the world championships.” 

An individual world title in Copenhagen would complete KI Bo Bae’s big-event triple: she already has that elusive Olympic gold and Archery World Cup Final Champion crown. 

CHOI Misun and CHANG Hye Jin, two of KI’s teammates went head-to-head in the second recurve women’s semifinal. Misun won it in a shoot-off – an uncharacteristic eight to Hye Jin’s seven as the winds picked up on the Antalya field. 

While the recurve women’s event saw established winners make waves into the last four, the top compounds were all middle seeds. 

Russia’s Mariia VINOGRADOVA ranked 13 during Antalya qualification and will go into the gold final as heavy favourite. Stephanie SALINAS, from Mexico, will shoot for a second bronze in a row after she secured her first individual podium in Shanghai. 

Read more about Antalya 2015.