An elite archer and an archery enthusiast teamed up to win a silver medal at the Asian Games. Joo Jae-hoon (31, Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power), Yang Jae-won (26, Sangmu), and Kim Jong-ho (29, Hyundai Steel) of the South Korean men’s compound archery team won the silver medal after narrowly losing to India in the men’s team compound archery final at the Hangzhou 2022 Asian Games on Friday at the Fuyang Throat Sports Center Archery Range in Hangzhou, China. Younger in age than Joo, but incomparably ahead in international experience and serving as the de facto ‘captain’, Kim Jong-ho is the ‘ace’ of South Korean compound archery. He is Korea’s most decorated World Championships medalist (3 gold, 1 silver, 2 bronze).He is also the only Korean compound shooter to have won an individual World Championship medal. Like many other compound archers, Kim Jong-ho started archery with recurve and then switched, which turned out to be a “stroke of genius” .Since 2017, he has worn the Taegeuk mark every year and has consistently posted the best results of any Korean athlete in national and international competitions .In this year’s ‘Evaluation Competition’, which is the final selection for the national team, she also won the Taegeuk mark by placing first with a total of 15 points in the first and second rounds. Yang Jae-won (Commerce) is touted as the ‘next ace’.He joined Ulsan Nam-gu Office in 2018, and earned his taegeuk just one year after joining .At the World Championships in Sertohenbosch, he won gold in the team event with his brothers .This year, his growth has been even more pronounced .A third-place finish at the national trials earned him a fifth consecutive Taeguk mark, and a month later, he won bronze in the individual event at the second edition of the Modern Archery World Cup 2023.With a silver medal at his first Asian Games, the archery world’s expectations for him are likely to be even higher .Unlike Kim Jong-ho and Yang Jae-won, who have followed an elite path, Joo Jae-hoon is a “fellow national team member” who started archery as a “hobby. Interested in archery since childhood, Joo picked up a bow in 2016 when he was a college student and joined a compound archery club in Gyeongsan, North Gyeongsang Province. Without a teacher, he honed his skills with seniors in the club and through YouTube. Jae-hoon Joo works as a petition police officer at Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power and is the father of two sons. After winning a silver medal in the mixed event with So Chae-won (Hyundai Mobis) on the 4th, he thanked his wife, who makes great sacrifices for her husband’s “hobby,” saying, “You are my match made in heaven. I love and appreciate you so much,” he said, expressing his gratitude .This gold medal, won by an elite athlete and a hobbyist, is also significant for the Korean Archery Association. Archery, a filial sport that has won numerous medals at the Olympics, is a sport that is popular but not many people enjoy. The archery association has been trying to introduce the sport to more people. Every year, the organization holds an archery tournament in the fall, and last year, it successfully organized a youth sports competition in which students taking an elite archery course and ordinary students competed as a team. Compound archery has the advantage of being more accessible because it requires less force on the shoulder, and it could be a “welcome mat” for the popularization of archery.”Our people are naturally good at shooting bows,” said Joo Jae-hoon, “and I’m sure there are many 스포츠토토존 people who have the talent to shoot bows well but don’t realize it.”
