1 August 2008 - Who will be the next Olympic Champions?

Who will be the next Olympic Champions? Lausanne – 1 August 2008   In just a few days the Olympic Games 2008 in Beijing will start. To get the latest information about these games we caught up with the FITA Secretary General, Tom Dielen, and asked him a few questions.   Who do you think will be the next Olympic Champions? T. D.: This is the question that everyone is asking in the lead up to the Olympic Games. Will there finally be an Olympic Champion that is able to retain his title? It has never happened before—but who can beat Park Sung-Hyun? And let’s not forget Marco Galiazzo, who recently has been in 2004 form—if not even better!   We will know at the end of the seven days of competition at the magnificent Archery Field in the Beijing Olympic Green. The field looks different from the last Olympics—no venue will ever replace the unique Panathinaiko Stadium which through its history is linked with the Olympic Games. The archery venue in Beijing will nevertheless offer a great competition.   Precisely, what will be the changes between Athens and Beijing? The venue in Beijing is the result of a new concept—two separate match courts, which will give more focus to the single match between two athletes, and even more importantly, will enable better TV coverage. The A field or the “centre court” will be the place for all key matches with live TV production. The B field will also allow for good TV coverage so that no one is left out and each country will have quality images of their athletes.   Another major change from 2004 is that the 1/32 and 1/16 eliminations will be shot in succession. This means that the spectators can follow their favourites in two subsequent matches. It will also help the athletes keep their rhythm since they won’t have to wait until the following day for their next match.   The last change I would like to highlight is that the order of the competition will be changed—we will start with the team competitions. The first medals in Archery will be awarded on Day 2 and 3 of the Games, so there is a good chance that it will be one of the first medals for the NOCs concerned. This will give more media attention to our athletes who deserve it for their hard work.      Olympic Green Archery Field - Court A What about the shooting conditions? I believe another reason the competition in Beijing will be great is that the Archery Green itself is going to be a place for many new records. At the Good Luck Beijing Test Event, the scores were very high and with the improvements made in the stadium since then, which provide even better protection from the wind, the scores are expected to be even higher.   The most difficult aspect for the teams will be to mentally prepare for entering the field of play and not be blown away by the view. Never before have the spectators’ stands been so close and so steep. The archers will really be the sole attention of the fans. For archers that were not at the test events, this will be challenging and could make the difference in the first match. Of course, as in the past, the archers will be able to familiarize themselves with the venue but the stands will be empty, and it never seems the same when the stands are full.   Now, coming back to the first question—who will be the next Olympic Champions? The first thing is, whoever will win, will be someone that has most likely shot more than 60,000 arrows during the last year—more than 1,500 arrows per week! Without this kind of practice, an archer cannot be consistent enough to win the Olympic gold medal.   The second thing is that in archery competitions today, it is impossible to determine exactly who will win—the reason is that the differences between the levels of the 64 athletes are so small that anything can happen. This, combined with the fact that close to 50 countries from all 5 continents will be competing in Beijing, makes it difficult to pick a winner.   Nevertheless, I take my chances and here are more detailed predictions:      Park Sung-Hyun (KOR)    For the women’s team round, Korea is for sure the favourite having never been beaten in this event at the Games. However, at the Archery World Cup in Porec (April 2008), the team of China beat Korea in the semi-final and won the Gold. Poland is another very strong team. The other teams to watch are Italy, India, Great Britain, France and Chinese Taipei.   For the men’s team round, Korea is the defending champion but has not been very dominating so far this year. Chinese Taipei has won the first two Archery World Cup stages this year and will be a very strong challenger to Korea. Italy, Malaysia, Australia, USA, Ukraine and Great Britain are the other important teams to watch.   Now for the individual women’s competition, there is a pretty good chance that Park Sung-Hyun wins again. At the test event last year I asked her if she was going to be the first ever double Olympic Champion—she who is the first and still the only woman to have broken the 1400-point barrier. Her answer was that the first and probably most difficult thing was to qualify for the Korean team, because the last times qualifying was already a big hurdle. She made it to the team and she is by far the favourite. The only ones that have been able to beat her in recent history were her teammates, and especially Yun Ok Hee who set a remarkable World Record of 119 points in a match this year, Justyna Mospinek (POL) and Natalia Valeeva (ITA). Valeeva won bronze in Barcelona 1992 and is the current World Champion (beating Park in the final). The other women to follow closely are Natalya Erdyniyeva (RUS), Naomi Folkard (GBR), Elena Tonetta (ITA), Berengere Schuh (FRA), Jennifer Nichols (USA), and the three Chinese athletes. Outsiders will come most likely from India, Chinese Taipei or Ukraine.      Marco Galiazzo (ITA)    On the individual men’s side, an archer is attracting a lot of attention. He is representing Australia but he was born in Korea. Kim Ha-Neul (Ha-Neul means “sky” in Korean) won the test event and he is the number one challenger to Marco Galiazzo for the title. Galiazzo also has to count with his teammates Ilario di Buo and Mauro Nespoli. Some other archers he has to count with are European Champion 2008 Baljinima Tsyrempilov (RUS), who was also the most consistent performer during 2007, Markiyan Ivashko (UKR), Al Wills (GBR) and Juan-Rene Serrano (MEX), the last two being the runners up to Tsyrempilov at the World Cup Final 2007 in Dubai.   Other challengers will include the members of the Korean, American, British and Malaysian teams. Among the Koreans, Im Dong-Hyun and Park Kyung-Mo, both current Team Olympic Champion. Im is the current Individual World Champion. And Park became the Individual World Champion in 1993 being only 18 years old: he also won the World Cup Final in 2006. Last but not least, the current Junior World Champion Romain Girouille from France. He has done an amazing season so far: he won the World Cup stage in Porec and qualified for the World Cup Final in Lausanne.   Thanks for the predictions. Looking ahead can you give us a sneak preview on London 2012? London is already working hard to prepare 2012. FITA and the newly appointed competition manager, Chris Marsh, will put in every effort to make London even better than what Beijing promises to be. The archery community knows Chris from seeing him compete in many World Cups for Switzerland.   One of the challenges will be to have more teams compete in the team competition while keeping the same number of countries and if possible even more athletes in the individual competition. We also have plans to include the World Cup circuit in the qualification system.    Would you like to add something? In conclusion, FITA is very pleased that our sport is growing and that more and more countries are claiming medals—the result of better structure at the national level and more professional coaches and archers. The fact is that some of the most traditional countries, which in the past have always had good results, now have to adapt to a higher level of professionalism to maintain their high performance.   So Tom, are you ready for these Olympic Games? We are ready! Everything is as good as done. BOCOG, the IOC, ASOIF and FITA have done their best to make these Beijing 2008 Olympic Games the best ever for archery, and we look forward to a very exciting competition!   Many thanks, Tom Dielen…   FITA Communication