Who is An San? This South Korean Archer has set a record by winning three gold medals for her country. However, her short hair style has pushed her at the receiving end on online hatred.
An's short hair have grabbed more eyeballs back at home more than her win. Amidst the rising anti-feminist sentiment in the country, she has been called a feminist for her hair style, reported a Reuters article on her. She is thus far the first triple gold winner in Tokyo Olympics.
The 20-year-old South Korean archer An San topped the qualification round with an Olympic record-breaking score of 680 out of a possible 720 points. With this score, she set an individual record at the Games and broke the team record with the Korean women’s squad on Friday. Four archers, South Korea's An San, Kang Chae-young, Jang Minhee and Alejandra Valencia of Mexico, have gone past the Olympic record in the women's 72 Arrows Ranking Round while star Indian archer Deepika Kumari, who is the sole participant in the women's archery event from the country, finished at ninth position with a score of 663 on Friday.
An San now holds the record for the highest individual score in the event. She surpassed the previous Games record by seven points, which was set by Lina Herasymenko of Ukraine (673).
South Korean archer An San made headlines, creating a new Olympic record with a score of 680.
Who is South Korean archer, An San?
The South Korean prodigy took up the sport while she was in primary school. She wished to join a newly-founded archery club at her school, however, there was only a boy's team so she and her parents had to persuade the school to let her join the team, reported Olympics.com. On July 17, two years ago, she won the women’s individual gold medal at the Tokyo test event for the 2020 Olympic Games. Entered as the event's second seed, An San defeated Deepika Kumari in straight sets. Interestingly, she had only made her international debut earlier that month at the World Cup in Berlin (which she also won).
She became the third recurve woman in history to shoot 1400 points on the four-distance 1440 Round that year. She finished third in Korean selections for 2020. The young archer made her international debut in women’s recurve at the Berlin 2019 Hyundai Archery World Cup.
In the women's individual qualification event on Friday, the Olympic Games debutant toppled a 25-year-old record, set by Ukrainian Lina Herasymenko during the 1996 Atlanta Games. San’s brilliant form puts her in a strong position to help South Korea’s women continue their domination over the Olympic team archery event. The team has won every team gold available since the very first in 1988. They also hold all the Olympic records.
The archer secured a spot for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo by finishing in the top three at the national selection trials in the Republic of Korea.
“I didn’t really expect to make the record. I’m happy, it’s my first time at the Games, so I’m really glad I made the record today,” said An San, the now number one seed, after her brilliant performance. “Everything went to plan," an elated archer said adding that she liked how she performed in the event. She was the first of four archers to deliver scores above the previous Olympic record. The Korean women combined for 2032 points while the previous Olympic record for team qualification was at 2004.
On Saturday, South Korea, comprising An San and Kim Je Deok, defeated the Indian pair of Deepika Kumari and Pravin Jadhav in the Mixed Archery Team quarterfinals.
Feature Image Credit: Olympics.com
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