A silver medal at athletic competitions can be viewed from different angles. You're either the second best in your sport, or you weren't good enough to be the best in the sport.
The South Korean men's compound archery trio of Kim Jong-ho, Yang Jae-won and Joo Jae-hoon fell in the latter camp, after they took silver medal behind India in the men's team event at the Asian Games in China on Thursday. And they came away from the 235-230 defeat in Hangzhou feeling inspired to use their failure as fuel.
"I am really sorry to people who've been supporting us. We all came to Hangzhou trying to win gold, and it's a shame we only ended up with silver," said Kim, who won the men's team gold at the previous Asiad in 2018. "We'll go right back to the drawing board and try to come out stronger at our next opportunity."
Yang also said he wasn't all that pleased with silver, even though it was his first career Asiad medal.
"I will try to remember this feeling of getting only silver," Yang said. "I want to make sure I will win gold next time."
Joo, a part-time archer who is on unpaid leave from his day job as a security guard, said the result wasn't an accurate measure of the team's talent.
"I really felt we were talented enough to win gold, but I think we got a bit unlucky with our physical conditions, and with the way the wind blew during the competition," Joo said. "Once we get back home, we're going to have to really grind it out and try to get better."
Kim revealed that he and Yang had recently tested positive for COVID-19, and that Kim himself was dealing with some serious lower back pains that made it difficult for him to even stand.
"I've been taking painkillers for the past week just to compete in this team event," Kim said. "I am devastated that we ended up with this result. At least we kept battling until the end."
India shot 235 out of a maximum 240. The country has won every compound gold medal offered in Hangzhou so far and has an all-Indian men's individual final scheduled for Saturday.
Kim said perhaps the South Korean archers felt a bit intimidated by the Indian archers in the final, which in turn led to a few too many 9s, while their opponents were hitting 10s with stunning regularity.
While South Korea has long dominated recurve archery, which is also an Olympic event, it hasn't been nearly as strong in compound archery -- which uses more forgiving bows and has targets set up at 50 meters away, 20 meters closer than recurve. In archery hierarchy, compound has long played the second fiddle to recurve.
To Kim, not winning gold Thursday was a missed opportunity.
"We wanted to show people that South Korea could also be great in compound archery," Kim said. "I am really frustrated that I couldn't make that happen. But I can promise you that we compound archers will keep working hard."
Kim's competition is done, and Joo and Yang will meet each other in the individual bronze medal match Thursday. Joo will be going for his third medal here, after also winning silver in the mixed team event Wednesday.
"It would have been nice if at least one of us had reached the gold medal match," Joo said. "But we can't do anything about what happened in the past. I want to have a memorable match against Jae-won and make sure I don't have any regrets at the end."
Source: Yonhap News Agency