Image: South Korea's silver medalist Kim Ye-ji went viral with her shooting pose. Credit: Twitter.
Team Korea had not been expected to fare well in the 2024 Paris Summer Games. The country sent its smallest delegation since 1976 with just 144 athletes, who were generally expected to bring back five or six gold medals. The delegation vastly exceeded expectations, matching the country's previous best gold medal haul from the 2008 Beijing Olympics and 2012 London Olympics with 13 golds, nine silvers and ten bronzes.
The South Korean women’s archery team continued its world-beating dominance, extending a streak that began in 1988 - when the event was introduced - by winning its tenth consecutive gold medal. Team Korea performed strikingly well in weapons and combat sports, winning five golds in archery (sweeping the sport,) three in shooting, and two each in fencing and taekwondo. Team Korea also won a gold in badminton, and added silver and bronze medals in swimming, judo, table tennis, boxing, modern pentathlon and powerlifting events.
It wasn't all roses, though. South Korea’s wrestling team failed to medal for the first time since the 1972 Munich Olympics, an embarrassing showing in a sport at which Korea has traditionally excelled. Korean Olympic wrestling has been in decline since 2012, when Samsung Group 삼성 그룹 ended its sponsorship. Badminton gold medalist An Se-yeong 안세영 made a splash in an interview immediately following her victory by suggesting that she would retire from the national team at just 22 years old. An said the national team had forced her to play through a serious injury with inadequate treatment.
