Rookie Lee triumphs over Woojin in debut medal match

Lee Woo Seok beat Korean teammate and world number one Kim Woojin to the recurve men’s gold medal at the second stage of the 2018 Hyundai Archery World Cup in Antalya, Turkey, finishing with a perfect 30 to take the final, 6-2.

“It’s my second World Cup event and I got a gold medal. It was touch and go, an extremely high-level match and I managed to come out on top,” said Lee, a 20-year-old apparently unfazed by the situation and arena.

“I wasn’t worried about my opponent. I was focused on my technique, my arrows and my performance.”

It was a match of exceptional quality, with a scorecard that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a compound match. Only nines and 10 were on the board, with Woo Seok shooting nine maximums to Woojin’s eight.

The last set was dramatic. Lee put all three of his arrows on the 10-line; Woojin shot a clear 29.

Nanjing’s Youth Olympic Champion in 2014, Lee needed all three shots to be confirmed as 10s for the win – and the judge did just that.

“I didn’t think the arrows were touching the 10-ring so I had already prepared for the next end. But, I’m lucky, they touched and I won,” he said.

Such an incredible standard on a day of scrappy, wind-blown archery stood testament to the quality of these two athletes.

Oh Jin Hyek completed the podium for Korea, taking bronze over Malaysia’s Khairul Anuar Mohamad. It marks, incredibly, the London 2012 Olympic Champion’s first medal on the Hyundai Archery World Cup circuit since 2014.

The second stage of the Hyundai Archery World Cup takes place in Antalya, Turkey on 20-26 May.