The Greatest Olympic Games in Archery’s History?

The London 2012 Olympic Games could well be the greatest Games for archery! Here is why. The Greatest Place Archery will benefit from a truly magnificent venue during the upcoming Olympic Games. The Lord’s Cricket Ground is not only one of the most iconic venues of the Games, but it is also one of the most famous places in British sporting history and is recognised worldwide. What Wembley is to football and Wimbledon is to tennis, Lord’s is to cricket and will be to archery during the London Games. Recurve Men: the Greatest Rivalry Possibly the greatest archery rivalry of all time is developing between IM Dong Hyun from Korea and Brady ELLISON (photo) from the USA! IM, the Roger FEDERER of archery and currently ranked No. 2 in the world, is a star in Korea, having won two team Olympic gold medals in 2004 and 2008. IM is one of the world’s greatest talents in archery’s history: he won the individual silver medal at the World Championships in 2003 at age 17. He went on to win the individual title in 2007 and the team title in 2003, 2007, 2009 and 2011! IM won several World Cup stages (the most recent one was this May in Antalya), including the 2008 World Cup Final in Lausanne. Brady ELLISON (USA) could be referred to as the Rafael NADAL of archery. ELLISON was a top young athlete in the compound division, which is not an Olympic event. He switched to recurve in 2007 and immediately created an impact in the international recurve scene. He qualified for the 2008 Olympic Games by beating all of the American records despite his young age. Brady is now the No. 1 in the world on the men’s side. He won the World Cup Final in 2010 and 2011 and many World Cup stages (the World Cup is a series of events that take place every year, whereas the world championships take place only once every two years). In 2011, he lost only two matches, accumulating individual victories at the World Cup Final, three World Cup stages, the Pan-American Championships, the Olympic Test Event in London, and more. He earned the bronze medal at the World Championships (one of his only two defeats). Despite a crowded sports world in the USA, Brady is receiving numerous media requests (including ESPN, NBC, Late Show, etc.). In April 2012, ELLISON won the Shanghai World Cup Stage. ELLISON and IM are the two favourites for the Olympic individual recurve men’s gold medal. Korea and the USA have also historically been the biggest rivals in archery, considering they have dominated the sport most years. However, the USA has not won the Olympic individual gold since 1996 and Korea has never won it despite winning so many Olympic medals since 1984. Will one of these two giants of archery make his dream and his country’s dream come true in London? Among the other favourites, Great Britain’s Laurence GODFREY, who ranked 4th in Athens in 2004, has progressed nicely this spring. He ranked 2nd at the final pre-Olympic World Cup Stage in Ogden this past June. We are also counting on the last two Olympic Champions Viktor RUBAN (UKR) and Marco GALIAZZO (ITA), as well as OH Jin Hyek (KOR), Markiyan IVASHKO (UKR), Juan Rene SERRANO (MEX), Crispin DUENAS (CAN), Jayanta TALUKDAR (IND) and the 1992 double-medallist Simon TERRY (GBR) to show their experience and perform well at the London Games. TERRY retired from archery after the 1992 Games, but returned in 2005 to qualify for the 2008 Olympic Games. He is now ready to put on a show for his home crowd! Let’s talk about some young underdogs who could create a big upset this summer: Luis ALVAREZ (MEX), who burst into the top level by winning the Ogden World Cup event last month, Rick VAN DER VEN (NED), who won the European Championships in May, Gael PREVOST (FRA) and the 2011 Asian champion Khairul Anuar MOHAMAD (MAS). Finally, let’s watch out for athletes from countries that were not previously powerhouses in archery: The Venezuelan Elias MALAVE, the European Championships silver medallist Klemen STAJHAR from Slovenia, Rene Philippe KOUASSI from the Ivory Coast, AUNG Nay Myo from Myanmar and Emdadul HAQUE MILON from Bangladesh. Recurve Men Team: the Greatest Field Ever In light of citing so many spectacular athletes in the individual recurve competition, the calibre of the 12 teams participating in the recurve men team event has never been so high nor has the competition been so tight in the history of the Olympic Games! Each of the participating teams have a realistic shot at the podium. In alphabetical order, the teams will be: China, France, Great Britain, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Chinese Taipei, United States of America, Ukraine. To attempt to analyse who will perform the best at the London Games, let’s compile the top 4 finishers in five major archery events since 2008 (the Beijing Games, the 2009 and 2011 World Championships, the 2010 Asian Games and the 2011 Olympic Test Event) and the three World Cup stages in 2012: Events 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing: KOR ITA CHN UKR 2009 World Championships in Ulsan: KOR FRA JPN CHN 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou: KOR CHN IND TPE 2011 World Championships in Turin: KOR FRA ITA MEX 2011 London Test Event: USA TPE KOR* ESP 2012 World Cup Stage Shanghai: USA FRA UKR KOR 2012 World Cup Stage Antalya: GBR IND KOR FRA 2012 World Cup Stage Ogden: USA IND GBR ITA *Korea broke the world record in the quarterfinals scoring 233 points.

This gives:
4 victories to Korea in the most important events;
2 silver medals to France at the two world championships;
2 victories to the USA in the three World Cup stages this year;
2 places to India at the last two World Cup stages; and
2 podium results to Great Britain at the last two World Cup stages.

Who will win? The men’s team event will take place on Saturday, 28 July. Will one of these teams bring home the first gold medal of the London Games? Will they have to break the world record to win gold? Will Great Britain continue the tradition that the host country usually wins a gold medal in archery?
Photo: KUMARI (IND) at the Archery World Cup Final in Istanbul last year Recurve Women: Two of the Greatest Participants Will Deepika KUMARI (IND) go down as the greatest archer in the sport’s history? That answer remains to be seen for years to come, but the 18-year-old is definitely the most talented young athlete on the field. She climbed to the No. 1 spot in the world this spring. At age 16, she won the individual gold medal at the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi 2010, which made her a star in India. She followed up with two junior world championships titles and many medals at the senior level. She won a team silver medal at the World Championships 2011 in Turin, the individual silver medal at the Individual World Cup Final 2011 in Istanbul and this year, she claimed victory at the Antalya World Cup Stage. KUMARI is in good company, with two of the greatest participants in Olympic history competing against her. Both Alison WILLIAMSON (GBR) and Natalia VALEEVA (ITA) will compete in their sixth consecutive Olympic Games. This ties the archery record set by the Italian DI BUO and WILLIAMSON will also tie the British record of the most Olympic Games competed in across all sports. For this feat, WILLIAMSON was awarded the Queen’s MBE recognition. WILLIAMSON won an Olympic bronze in 2004. Tied with her for archery’s greatest number of Olympic Games, VALEEVA competed on three different teams at the Games (the Unified Team, which was the name used for the sports team of the former Soviet Union, in 1992, Moldova in 1996, and Italy since 2000). She won two individual World Championships and team World Championships across three decades! Just like Simon TERRY on the men’s side, she earned two bonze medals at the Barcelona Games in 1992. At the 2012 Games, a former teammate of VALEEVA’s will also be competing: Khatuna LORIG, who competed on the Unified Team in 1992, Georgia in 1996 and 2000, and now for the USA! LORIG will play in her fifth Games (she missed Athens). LORIG was also a personal coach to actress Jennifer LAWRENCE in the recent Hunger Games film. KUMARI will have two other very strong opponents in London: the Koreans KI Bo Bae and LEE Sung Jin. At No. 2 in the world, KI has been now on the Korean team for three years, accumulating experience and victories but also some individual disappointment at the World Championships and Asian Games. Which KI will show up on the Lord’s field? LEE is no less than the individual silver medallist (and team gold medallist) from Athens 2004. On the 1st of July, she was ranked “only” 27th in the world, because she recently came back to the Korean national team after fighting to overcome a shoulder injury. LEE won the individual and team gold at the 2005 World Championships. LEE has also the great PARK Sun-Hyung as her personal coach. PARK won the individual gold in Athens, and came 2nd in Beijing, among many other accomplishments). Other favourites include the Chinese and Russian archers, TAN Ya Ting and LE Chieh Ying (TPE), Miranda LEEK (USA), Alejandra VALENCIA (MEX), KWON Un Sil (PRK). There is also the surprise 2011 World Champion Denisse VAN LAMOEN from Chile and Bishindee URANTUNGALAG from Mongolia! Recurve Women Team: the Greatest Streak Ever? On the women’s team side, Korea has won all of the Olympic team gold medals in the history of the event. This six out of six streak started in 1988, a record that features among the top across all of the Olympic sports. In women’s events, only the former Soviet Union outperformed this streak with eight consecutive gold medals in women's artistic gymnastics from 1952-80. Will Korea climb one more step in this record race? Can they be beaten? Their arch-rival China, as well as Chinese Taipei and India, have never been so close. Other teams, including Russia, Mexico, the USA, Great Britain, Japan, Ukraine, Denmark and Italy, who are the current World Champions, all may pose a slightly lower threat. Who will win? As with the men, we can attempt a analysis based on the teams’ performances at the last major international archery events: Events 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing: KOR CHN FRA GBR 2009 World Championships in Ulsan: KOR JPN RUS BLR 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou: KOR CHN IND TPE 2011 World Championships in Turin: ITA IND KOR CHN 2011 London Test Event: KOR CHN JPN GBR 2012 World Cup Stage Shanghai: KOR IND CHN UKR 2012 World Cup Stage Antalya: KOR TPE CHN MEX 2012 World Cup Stage Ogden: RUS USA MEX GER So Korea, who stayed home to train during the Ogden Stage, was beaten only once during the eight events. Italy took advantage of this opportunity that India opened up for them by beating Korea, and won the World Championships. The Koreans also went to a double shoot-off (extra arrows) against China at the Asian Games before prevailing. This cannot be replicated in London as the tie-break rule changed. In the case of a tie in the shoot-off, the team that has the closest arrow to the centre wins the match. And this, if it happens at the London 2012 Olympic Games, would be one of the great moments in the history of archery competition! World Archery Communication