Rio Olympics: South Korea dominates archery

SouthKorea's stranglehold on Olympic archery showed little sign of easing yesterday as men's number one Kim Woo-jin fired a 72-arrowworldrecordand the nation's women dominated the ranking rounds at the Rio de Janeiro Games.

The tournament's first shoot-off on a glorious day at the Sambodromo began with a bang as worldchampion Kim racked up 700 points out of a maximum 720, beating the 699 his compatriot Im Dong-hyun compiled in the preliminary round in London four years ago.

The day ended with all three ofSouthKorea's women at the top of the standings, led by 20-year-old Choi Mi-sun, who flirted with teammate Kim Bo-bae'sworldrecordbefore the wind picked up in the afternoon.

SouthKoreatook three of the four golds in London, with only the bronze medal-winning men's team missing out, but the Rio contingent appear determined to make a clean sweep this time round.

Such is theKoreans' unwavering focus that 24-year-old Kim barely acknowledged hisrecord, preferring to talk only about the men's team event on Saturday.

"It's just the ranking round. I want to focus on tomorrow, so today's not really big happy," he said through a translator before being mobbed bySouthKorean reporters.

Kim sealed therecordwith riveting theatre, needing to find the innermost gold circle for a maximum 10 points with his final arrow and duly sending it flush into the middle.

His face broke into a smile as he turned back to his camp, having captured the top seeding and drawn a first-round match-up with 64th and last-ranked archer Gavin Ben Sutherland, a Zimbabwean who finished 134 points adrift of theKorean.

Kim will link up with Lee Seung-yun and Ku Bon-chantoday to try to restore the nation's reign over the men's team event.

The United States ended their run of three successive Olympic titles from 2000-08 in a nail-biting semi-final in London.A powerful American team drew confidence from an outstanding 690 from formerworld champion Brady Ellison, who took second seeding behind Kim.

Ellison and his teammates Jake Kaminski and Zach Garrett scored 2,024 points in total to be second behindSouthKorea(2,057). Italy, surprise winners in London, took the third seed.

TheKorean women, unbeaten in the team event since its debut at the 1988 Seoul Games, finished top with 1,998 points, a gaping 60 ahead of Russia, with London silver medallists China ranked third.TheKoreans appear in good shape to extend their winning streak when the women's team event is decided on Sunday.

(Reuters)