Team, Men

The men’s team was the first medal event in archery at the Rio Olympics, just one day after the opening ceremony. Current world champions Korea had won nine of the last 11 world titles as well as four of the seven previous Olympic gold medals, which made them favorites for Rio. The three team members included numbers one, two and six in the world rankings, and the winners of the last three individual world titles.

The Korean men regained their crown with a win in the final against the United States, thus avenging defeat by the Americans in the 2012 semi-final. The victory of the Korean men was more impressive than that of the women, as they defeated all their opponents, Netherlands, Australia and the United States, in the elimination matches with the highest possible margin of 6-0 on each occasion. After the ranking round (216 arrows) the Koreans shot 2057 points with the second placed US team trailing by 33 points. In the final, Kim Woo-Jin, Lee Seung-Yun and Ku Bon-Chan started with six tens in a perfect first set and closed the match with consecutive sets of 58 and 59. Individual bronze medallist and world’s fourth ranked Brady Ellison led the United States to the silver medal. In the bronze medal match, Australia defeated PR China in four sets to win the country’s first ever team medal in archery. Defending Olympic champions Italy lost 0-6 in the quarter-final against PR China.