South Korea women's archery has flown under the radar as one of the best teams at the 2024 Paris Olympics—and that's not an exaggeration.
After securing the gold in today's team event, they'll have won 10 consecutive gold medals dating back to the Seoul Summer Games in 1988. That means by the time the 2028 Los Angeles Games roll around, they'll have been undefeated for four decades.
This year's hardware didn't come easy, though. China's women fought until the bitter end, forcing the match into a shoot-off. It was so close, the official had to pull out a magnifying glass to decide the winner.
The Sporting News has everything you need to know about the dramatic championship contest that kept South Korea's 40-year streak alive.
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Why did South Korea and China go to a shoot-off in the women's team event final?
South Korea and China were tied, 4-4 at the end of four sets. The South Koreans started out in front with a two-set lead, but the Chinese came back to even it. Each set won equaled two points, hence the score. Because of the draw, it was decided there would be a shoot-off.
A shoot-off in the archery team event allocates one arrow per athlete—in this case, six arrows for six athletes, three per team. Each archer gets one chance to shoot at the target, earning a score of zero to 10 per arrow, with zero being outside the target, one being the outermost ring, and 10 being the bullseye at the center.
The shootout was initially scored at 27-27, with Koreans Jeon Hun young and Lim Si-hyeon both scoring nines. Because China's Yang Xiaolei was the only archer to hit a 10 during the shootout, South Korea would lose and China would end their gold medal streak.
However, it did appear as though both Jeon and Lim's arrows touched the line between the nine and the 10. This is called a line cutter, and the point is awarded from the higher-scoring zone. The target judge went so far as to pull out a magnifying glass to determine whether either of their arrows was touching the line bordering the bullseye.
the gold medal archery match came down to a one-arrow shoot-off AND THEN it came down to an arrow so close to the border between a 9 and a 10 that someone had to come out and look at it with a magnifying glass. unreal drama pic.twitter.com/vzc7Pbal8D
— Rodger Sherman (@rodger) July 28, 2024
In the end, Jeon and Lim were both awarded 10s, and South Korea emerged victorious 29-27 in the shoot-off, giving them a 5-4 lead for their 10th consecutive gold medal.
MORE: Lim Sihyeon, South Korean archer, shatters previous world best at 2024 Olympics
South Korea, China team event final score
| Set 1 | Set 2 | Set 3 | Set 4 | Shoot-off | Final | |
| South Korea | 56 | 55 | 52 | 53 | 29 | 5 (245) |
| China | 53 | 54 | 54 | 55 | 27 | 4 (243) |
Olympic archery team event format
Before all five archery events (men's and women's individual, men's and women's team, and the mixed team event), there is a ranking round that is played in tournament format. This is used to seed athletes for all five medal events.
All 128 athletes (64 men and 64 women) compete for total points, shooting 72 total arrows at a target 70 meters away in 12 groupings of six arrows each. A perfect score is 720, and each athlete gets two minutes per six arrows.
For the team event, 16 teams are ranked based on the combined ranking round scores of the three athletes per team. They are then seeded into a single-elimination tournament bracket.
MORE: USA vs. Serbia men's basketball results.
Olympic archery team event scoring
Team events include six athletes total, three per team. Each match includes a maximum of four sets in which each archer receives a total of two arrows to score zero to 10 points depending on the location of the arrow relative to the target. Each team is given two minutes per set to shoot all six arrows with a maximum of 60 points possible.
In the team event, each team is given two minutes to shoot their six arrows per round, two arrows per athlete. The team that scores more total points in the set earns two points. If the set is tied, both teams earn one point.
If the score is tied after four rounds, then the winning point is decided by a shoot-off, which has been explained above.