Hyundai Motor Group Executive Chair Chung Euisun, right, poses with members of the women's archery team after they won an Olympic gold medal at Les Invalides in Paris, July 28. From left are Nam Su-hyeon, Lim Si-hyeon and Jeon Hun-young. Courtesy of Hyundai Motor Group

Hyundai Motor Group Executive Chair Chung Euisun was reelected as the chairman of the Korea Archery Association, extending the group's support for archers for four more years.

According to the association, its election committee decided to appoint Chung as the 14th chairman of the association, extending his tenure until January 2029. This marks his sixth consecutive term since first taking on the role in 2005.

The election committee praised Chung for his significant contributions to enhancing the competitiveness of the Korean archery community. They highlighted his long-term vision, improvements to the association's administrative and operational systems, efforts to achieve financial independence and support for the development of the national team.

Chung and Hyundai Motor Group have been sponsoring the archery association since 1985, helping to support the country's dominance in the sport on global stages including the Olympics. At the 2024 Paris Olympics, Korean archers swept the gold medals in all archery events, with the women's team claiming their 10th consecutive Olympic gold medal in the team event.

Chung's support for the association was highlighted amid a series of controversies surrounding Korea's national sports federations during the Olympics, including the ongoing rift between Paris Games badminton gold winner An Se-young and the Badminton Korea Association.

Hyundai Motor Group said Chung applied corporate management principles in running the archery association, stressing transparency, fairness and full support.

Other sports federations have received criticism over cronyism, factionalism or other unfair practices. Meanwhile, the Korean archery team has largely remained free of controversy over the years, using only athlete's current performances as the only standard for national team selection.

To improve the training environment of the athletes, the association introduced training systems using the group's technologies, such as a shooting robot or a multi-lens camera system used for athletes to correct their posture. The association also made headlines for establishing training facilities modeled after Les Invalides in Paris to boost the performances of athletes at the Paris Games.

Those efforts helped Korea maintain its status as the global powerhouse in archery. Korea has claimed a total of 18 gold medals, three silvers and four bronzes in five Summer Olympics since the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

To foster young archery talent, Chung established a youth national team for elementary school students in 2013, providing them with equipment and training support for free, in a bid to set up a structured system of nurturing elite athletes. Hyundai Motor has also been running a championship game named after the group's honorary chairman Chung Mong-koo.

Buoyed by these efforts, the number of registered athletes and coaches at the association also increased to 2,800 this year from 1,633 in 2005.