And there’s more. The Japanese ladies recurve team administered a thrashing to the mighty Korea in the team finals at the Asian Grand Prix, the last big tournament before the Asian Games. Japan have been producing strong results for some years now but it’s a great lesson in confidence – for both teams. Watch and enjoy:
Answer: Shooting… in Korea. The picture above was put up by the Korean Archery Association on their Facebook page today, as the ranking round took place at the Yuanshen Stadium.
Many people have noticed the absence of a Korean recurve team at the current Shanghai World Cup stage (although the KAA has sent a compound squad). It’s almost ‘our’ equivalent of Brazil or Germany deciding to skip the football World Cup. Meh, we’ll sit this one out. These are the facts: the dates of the Shanghai and Medellin stages were moved at the end of last year, and the KAA had already arranged for this week to be their selection shoot for the upcoming Asian Games. The above eight got picked today. Stick your money on them now. (There is compound archery in the Asian Games as well this year, but I guess they are picking that team some other time.)
The Korean team frequently skip one or more stages of the World Cup, presumably because they are sure they can get enough points for the grand final in two competitions. Apparently this year they will be in Medellin and Antalya, but not Wroclaw, because this year the Wroclaw date clashes with a national shoot in Korea. Clearly, they can’t be bothered with these tuppenny-hapenny international tournaments when there’s serious work to be done at home – and of course, the standard of competition is likely to be higher. It’s a wonderfully intransigent statement to the archery world. “You fit round us, we don’t fit round you.” But it’s also a shame for the archery audience, because it lessens the sporting spectacle when the biggest dog in the fight doesn’t show up.
I do like the exclamation-mark-riddled way Chrome has translated the KAA Facebook page below. Seems to sum the above up pretty well: