There might be some confusion about the recently-completed Olympics and Paralympics that took place in Tokyo, Japan. While the games did take place in 2021, they were actually a postponement of the games that were supposed to happen the year before, which were canceled for obvious reasons. Fortunately, the games resumed without hindrance, including the archery competitions that were returned to the games relatively recently. Below, we discuss the results of archery competitions at these recent Tokyo games, and how this will shape the future of the sport going forward.
Individual Competitions – Results
These are the gold medal winners of the individual archery competitions at the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, separated according to gender and archery equipment. Note that the (P) next to a winner indicates ‘Paralympics’:
- Men’s Individual – Mete Gozas, Turkey – With a score of 669, Gozas edged Italy’s Mauro Nespoli 6-4 in the final round, bringing home the first archery medal in his native Turkey’s history.
- Women’s Individual – An San, South Korea – An set an Olympic record of 680 points on the way to gold, and her performance in these games is one of the greatest female competitive archery history.
- Men’s Recurve (P) – Gholamreza Rahimi, Iran – With a final score of 644 points, Rahimi narrowly defeated Zhao Luxie of China (639 points) to take home gold. This was his first paralympic medal.
- Women’s Recurve (P) – Zahra Nemati, Iran – Nemati won her second individual gold in the recurve competition with 610 points in the final round versus Italy’s Vincenza Petrilli.
- Men’s Individual W1 (P) – David Drahonínský, Czech Republic – In a narrow one-point win over Turkey’s Nihat Türkmenoğlu, the Czech archer won the second gold medal of his career.
- Women’s Individual W1 (P) – Chen Minyi, China – Chen’s first gold medal – one of two she won at this year’s Paralympics – came with a win over Sarka Musilova of the Czech Republic.
- Men’s Individual Compound Open (P) – He Zihao, China – He defeated Ramizan Biabani of Iran, after he ran the field with decisive victories.
- Women’s Individual Compound Open (P) – Phoebe Paterson Pine, Great Britain – The 23-year-old Pine defeated a 19-year-old Mariana Zuniga in a final that displayed the future of women’s paralympic archery.
Team Competitions – Results
The following are the results from the team competitions:
- Men’s Team – Kim Woo-jin, Oh Jin-hyek, and Kim Je-deok, South Korea – The Men’s team of South Korea faced little competition on their way to gold over Chinese Taipei.
- Women’s Team – An San, Jang Min-hee, and Kang Chae-young, South Korea – The South Korean Women’s team continued their dominant showing at the most recent games, winning easily over the O.C.
- Mixed Team Recurve (P) – Margarita Sidorenko and Kirill Smirnov, R.O.C. – The duo from Russia defeated Italy’s team of Elisabetta Mijno and Stefano Travisani to close out a brilliant overall performance.
- Mixed Team Compound (P) – Lin Yueshan and He Zihao, China – The Chinese compound team took home gold by defeating the Turkish team of Öznur Cüre and Bülent Korkmaz.
Notable Events
The following are some noteworthy events that happened at the Olympics and Paralympics in 2021:
- South Korea’s An San took home three golds – the most ever in Olympic archery – and set numerous World Records, en route to a historic performance.
- Led by An San, the South Korean Women’s archery team dominated this Olympics from start to finish, taking home four of the possible five gold medals. This is the ninth consecutive gold for the undefeated South Korean team, who also owns all the World Records for the competition.
- O.C. stands for the Russian Olympic Committee, who replaced the Russian National Team due to the results of a doping scandal in 2019.
- Iranian archers had a strong showing at Tokyo’s Paralympic games, taking home individual golds in both the men’s and women’s individual recurve competition, and capturing silver and bronze in others.
