Kim Woo-jin, center, of Korea and compatriot Lee Woo-seok, right, pose after winning a gold medal and a bronze, respectively, in the men's archery individual event at the Paris Olympics at Invalides in Paris, Sunday. At left is silver medalist Brady Ellison of the United States. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul
Kim Woo-jin captured the men's individual archery title Sunday for his third gold medal of the Paris Olympics, giving South Korea a clean sweep of archery gold medals in the process.
Kim defeated Brady Ellison of the United States in a shoot-off in the final at Invalides in Paris and became the second triple gold medalist for South Korea at the ongoing Olympics, joining fellow archer Lim Si-hyeon.
Kim previously won the men's team and mixed team gold medals in Paris, while Lim also went 3-for-3 in the women's individual, women's team and mixed team events.
With five career gold medals, Kim also became the most decorated South Korean Olympian, breaking a tie with three others.
He is the third South Korean man to win an Olympic individual title, joining Oh Jin-hyek in 2012 and Gu Bon-chan in 2016.
"I am so pleased to have made history," Kim said. "I didn't have any individual medal before this. I am really happy that I've finished this puzzle."
Kim Woo-jin of South Korea celebrates after winning the gold medal in the men's individual archery event at the Paris Olympics at Invalides in Paris, Aug. 4. Korea Times photo by Shim Hyun-chul
In individual archery matches, each archer takes three arrows per set, and the one with the higher score earns two points for a set win. A tie is worth one point. The objective is to score six points first. If a match is tied after five sets, archers go to a single-arrow shoot-off.
Ellison, the 2016 Olympic individual bronze medalist, won the opening set over Kim 29-27, with the South Korean hitting an 8 with his second arrow.
Kim won the next set 28-24 to tie the score at 2-2, shooting a pair of 10s to sandwich another 8. Ellison went 9-8-7 with his three arrows.
Ellison pushed Kim to the brink with a 29-27 win in the third set, grabbing a 4-2 lead. But Ellison gave Kim an opening by hitting an 8 with his second arrow of the fourth set, and Kim hit a 10 with his final arrow to take the set and tie the score at 4-4.
With the gold medal on the line, the two veterans, with a combined eight Olympic appearances between them, both put up a perfect 30 in the fifth set, a spectacular display befitting the grand stage of the last archery final in Paris.
A shoot-off would determine the color of their medals. Going first, Kim hit a 10 slightly to the left of dead center. Ellison followed with a 10 of his own, but Kim's arrow was ruled closer to the center.
By official measure, Kim's arrow was 55.8 millimeters from the center, while Ellison's was 60.7 mm away.
Kim said he thought he could win the fifth set and thus the match after shooting 30, but was not surprised that Ellison matched that perfect score, knowing how great the American archer is.
"I knew I had to be really good in the shoot-off because Ellison is capable of hitting dead center," Kim said. "At first, I didn't know I had won. Fortunately, I ended up winning by such a small margin."
South Korea also won all archery gold medals up for grabs in 2016, but the mixed team event was not yet a part of the competition. When the mixed event was added for Tokyo in 2021, South Korea won four out of five gold medals, missing out on the men's individual title.
Earlier Sunday, another South Korean archer, Lee Woo-seok, won the bronze medal after beating Florian Unruh of Germany in the third-place match. Lee lost to Kim in the semifinals to drop to the bronze medal contest and salvaged his first career individual medal.
Kim became the fifth athlete to win at least three gold medals in Paris. With Kim and Lim, South Korea is the only nation with two triple gold medalists at this Olympics so far. (Yonhap)