An San steered her way into another recurve women’s final four at Antalya 2026 on Friday, keeping Korea’s hopes alive as the nation’s last remaining archer in the category.
The Tokyo 2020 Olympic Champion is competing as one of Korea’s reserve archers for the 2026 Hyundai Archery World Cup season – as was Jang Minhee in Shanghai – after failing to finish inside the top three at the national trials. As a result, she will not represent Korea at the upcoming Aichi-Nagoya 2026 Asian Games.
In Türkiye, however, Korea’s recurve women campaign now rests on the shoulders of one of the sport’s biggest stars.
“I feel very good,” said the defending champion. “I always wanted to reach the finals because this World Cup is my first [of the year]. I cannot say I’m shooting as well as before, so I want to go further.”
“The weather was very windy and the temperature was hot, but I tried. I have a lot of confidence right now and I did it, I made it.”
Top seed Oh Yejin was eliminated by Mexico’s Ana Paula Vazquez, Gwangju 2025 World Archery Champion Kang Chaeyoung lost to Italy’s Roberta Di Francesco, while Lee Yunji exited in the 1/24 eliminations against France’s Amélie Cordeau.
An San herself was pushed all the way in the quarterfinals by China’s Yu Qi.
Under the hot Antalya sun, Yu recovered from a slow opening set of 22 points to shoot a perfect 30 in the second and level the match at 2-2 before the pair traded sets into a deciding fifth.
As she has done so many times before, An San held her nerve, shooting 10, nine and nine while Yu dropped an eight to hand the Korean her fifth Hyundai Archery World Cup final four appearance.
