Individual, Men

Despite having only one archer in the semi-finals, Ku Bon-Chan secured the fourth gold of the Games for Korea. He had two close matches in the quarter-final and semi-final against Australia’s Taylor Worth and American Brady Ellison respectively, winning both with one-arrow tie-breakers after 5-5 ties. Ku also needed five sets against Jean-Charles Valladont in the final despite looking like the easy winner after three sets. He had already celebrated victory, when one of Valladont’s arrows was upgraded in score, bringing the overall score to 5-1 and reviving the Frenchman’s hopes. Valladont won the fourth set to get to within two points of Ku at 3-5, but some eights by the Frenchman enabled the Korean to get back on the winning track as Ku took the fifth set 27-26 and with it the gold medal. Brady Ellison took bronze after beating his neighbour in the world ranking list, the Netherland’s Sjef van den Berg, 6-2. This was Ellison’s first individual medal after two team silver medals in 2012 and 2016. Another Korean, Kim Woo-Jin, who set new World and Olympic records in the ranking round, was beaten in the last 32 by Riau Ega Agatha from Indonesia. Kim, who came to Rio as top of the world rankings, was one of two of the top six ranked archers not to reach the semi-final, despite his impressive performance in the ranking round.