Kim Woojin may have departed early in the individuals but shot brilliantly to take the recurve men’s team and mixed team golds at Antalya 2025, the third stage of the 2025 Hyundai World Cup.
Archery’s all-time great beat Germany in both finals, winning the men’s team event for Korea in a shoot-off with fellow Paris 2024 Olympic gold medallists Lee Woo Seok and Kim Je Deok and then shortly after did the same in the mixed team partnering Lim Sihyeon, another Olympic champion. They defeated Katharina Bauer and Florian Unruh – who also represented Germany in the men’s – 6-2 in the usual recurve set-play system.
The victories were in response to Woojin’s shock second round exit yesterday at the recurve men’s individual matches to Andres Temino Mediel, but the defending World Cup champion showed everyone present at Antalya Beach Park it was a mere blip in an otherwise stellar record.
“Even though the rules have been changed for Antalya, the results were good so maybe if the rules are changed also for the Olympic and Asian Games it’s been a great opportunity to get used to it,” said Woojin when asked to give an overall summary on Antalya which has seen several changes tested this week.
“Sports are unpredictable, this is why people are interested in archery. It happened [individuals loss] but I’m going to make sure it never happens again.”
Another impressive aspect of Woojin on Sunday recurve was how much better he shot than yesterday without the extra day of rest.
To put it into context, out of the 17 arrows he released from both finals, the Korean hit the 9 just five times, getting seven 10s and five 11s, averaging a score of 10 on the dot in the men’s team and then 9.88 in the mixed team.
