In Korean female shooting, there is a genealogy of high school student rifle marksman. When she was a high school senior, Yeo won a gold medal at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. When she was a high school senior, Kang Cho-hyun also won a silver medal at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
Ban, who is the youngest among 143 Korean athletes to participate in the Paris Olympics, is considered the successor of Yeo Gap-soon and Kang Cho-hyun. Ban, who is 17, is a sophomore at Daegu Sports High School.
Ban is expected to give his first medal to the Korean team at the Paris Olympics. He will compete in the mixed 10-meter air rifle event to be held at Chatoru Shooting Center in France at 4 p.m. on Saturday. On the same day, a bronze medal match will be held at 5:30 p.m., followed by a gold medal match.
In just three years since he started shooting, Ban has been wearing the national flag. When he was an 8th grader, he caught a gun along with his friend from the shooting club at the same school in 2021. He had never shot a gun at an amusement park or an arcade before. He ranked first in a competition held in Daegu Market a little over a month later. Ban is considered to have a strong mentality as an athlete who is born with a shooting talent and competes every day. Due to the nature of shooting sports, which requires emptying out one’s mind, Ban’s naive personality is a great help to the game.
A case in point is the selection match for the national team at the Paris Olympics. At the moment when Ban could be eliminated even with a single slip, people said, “I want to finish this quickly and eat beef tartare bibimbap.” In the final selection match for the national team, Ban ranked first with a score of 632.2 points, beating his seniors. Despite living in Jincheon National Training Center where many athletes are struggling, Ban said, “The food at the restaurant was so delicious. I love the athletes’ village because there are so many things to eat.”
Given his natural talent and personality, some expect that he could have a big accident at this year’s event. In June, Ban finished second in the 10-meter air rifle at the ISSF World Cup. He was 0.1 point ahead of the runner-up. He will also compete in mixed competitions and 10-meter air rifle at the Paris Olympics. “I am humble but also share the thought that other athletes are not that big of a deal. I want to seize my first medal opportunity at the Olympics,” Ban said.
Korea’s shooting team, along with Ban Hyo-jin and Choi Dae-han, also aims for a medal in the mixed event of Park Ha-joon and Park Joo-hyun. From the beginning, it seemed that Ban Hyo-jin and Park Ha-joon, who ranked first respectively in the men’s and women’s national team competitions, would be paired up. However, the coach team decided that it would be better to change the composition of the team while training to adapt to the local area after arriving in Paris.
BY: 메이저사이트