New competition scheduled for S. Korea’s top archers

SEOUL, Aug. 30 (Yonhap) — The national archery governing body said Tuesday it will hold a new competition pitting the top homegrown archers against each other this fall.

The Korea Archery Association said the event, tentatively titled “Korea Archery Competition 2016,” will be held from Oct. 20 to 22. After the official practice on Oct. 20, the auxiliary stadium at Jamsil Sports Complex will host the preliminaries the following day. The finals will be held at Olympic Park’s Peace Square on Oct. 22. All venues are in Seoul.

The competition will take place about two months after South Korea’s historic sweep of four archery gold medals at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics. All six Rio contestants — Chang Hye-jin, Ki Bo-bae and Choi Mi-sun for women, and Ku Bon-chan, Kim Woo-jin and Lee Seung-yun for men — will be in action.

They will be among the 160 archers — the top-80 for men and women — in the field, according to the organizers.

South Korea has been a dominant force in Olympic archery for decades, and its talent pool is so deep that a domestic competition may just have the intensity of an international event.

Further details of the event, including the title and the purse, will be announced in the middle of September.

South Korean Olympic archers pose for photos after completing a gold medal sweep at the Rio de Janeiro Summer Games on Aug. 12, 2016. From left: Choi Mi-sun, Chang Hye-jin, Ki Bo-bae, Kim Woo-jin, Ku Bon-chan and Kim Woo-jin.