Chang Hye-jin
Chang Hye-jin (; or ; born 13 May 1987) is a South Korean recurve archer. A two-time Olympic gold medalist, Chang was the Olympic champion in both the women's individual and women's team events at 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. She is a former number one-ranked recurve archer, having headed the World Archery Rankings between 2017 and 2019. After being introduced to archery at the age of eleven, Chang made her international debut in 2008. She first qualified for the senior South Korean national team in 2010 and has since regularly represented  her country at international competitions. In addition to her Olympic achievements Chang has won team gold medals at the World Archery Championships, the Asian Games, and the Summer Universiade, and was the women's individual runner-up at the 2017 World Championships. Early life. Chang Hye-jin was born on 13 May 1987 in the city of Daegu. She was first introduced to archery at the age of eleven and participated in her first national tournament two years later. She won her first tournament during her second year of high school in Daegu, and after studying at Daegu's Keimyung  University, joined the Seoul-based LH team to shoot professionally. As of August 2018 she remains a member of the LH team. Career. 2008–2014: Early career. Chang made her international debut in 2008 at the World University Games held in Chinese Taipei. The following year she was selected to compete in Summer Universiade in Belgrade, winning gold medal in the women's team recurve event. She successfully qualified for the South Korean senior team in 2010, but in 2012 narrowly missed out on selection for that year's Summer Olympics in London, placing fourth in the national team trials in  which the top three were chosen for Olympic competition. Chang made her debut at the biennial World Archery Championships in 2013, winning the women's team recurve title with Ki Bo-bae and Yun Ok-hee after defeating Belarus in a low-scoring final. Eleven months later she won two medals at the 2014 Asian Games, reaching the gold medal match in both the women's team and women's individual recurve events. With teammates Jung Dasomi and Lee Tuk-young she secured South Korea's fifth consecutive women's team title after a comfortable victory over China, but was  outshot by Jung by seven set points to three in the individual final. 2016: Olympic champion. In the spring of 2016 Chang won qualification for the South Korean Olympic team on her second attempt, joining the reigning Olympic champion Ki Bo-bae and the women's recurve world number one Choi Mi-sun for the women's individual and women's team events in Rio de Janeiro. Although the trio were widely expected to win their nation's eighth consecutive Olympic gold medal in the team competition, it was Choi and Ki who were tipped for success in the individual  discipline after strong performances in the 2015 World Archery Championships, with Chang later being described by "Reuters" as the "least-fancied" of the three Korean women. At the Olympic Games in July Chang concluded the preliminary 72-arrow ranking round in second position, scoring 666 points from a maximum of 720. This gave her the number two seed for the individual competition. With Choi and Ki also scoring highly to finish the round in first and third place respectively, a combined score of 1,998 points earned the trio the top seed for the team competition. Chang, Choi, and Ki were  ultimately successful in maintaining South Korea's undefeated streak in the team event, which took place prior to the individual competition, overcoming the second-seeded Russian women to win their nation's eighth successive Olympic title. As the number two seed in the individual event Chang avoided facing either Ki or Choi until at least the semi-final stage. Four wins in the first four rounds duly set up an all-South Korean semi-final against Ki in the last four, with Choi having been eliminated in the preceding quarter-final round. Although Ki was the favourite going into the  match, Chang overcame a poor start - her second arrow scoring just three points in the windy conditions - to win by seven set points to three and advance to the final. Her opponent in the final was Germany's Lisa Unruh, who had unexpectedly reached the gold medal match after concluding the ranking round in twenty-first place. A victory by six set points to two earned Chang her second Olympic gold medal and made her the eighth South Korean woman to become the Olympic individual archery champion. Her win also marked South Korea's twenty-second Olympic gold medal in  archery, surpassing short track speed skating as the nation's most successful Olympic sport. Chang's achievements earned her the accolade of top female athlete at the 2016 Korea Woman Sports Awards. 2017–2018: World number one. Chang became the world's top female recurve archer in June 2017. At the annual Archery World Cup final in September she won two medals, achieving gold in the mixed team event alongside reigning men's world champion Kim Woojin and bronze in the women's individual event. In October Chang partnered Choi Mi-sun and Kang Chae-young at the 2017 World Championships  to defeat the host nation Mexico and secure South Korea's thirteenth World Championship gold medal in the women's team event. She later finished as the runner-up in the women's individual event after losing to the Russian world number three Ksenia Perova in the final. Chang began 2018 strongly with victory in the first stage of the Archery World Cup in Shanghai, dropping just two points in the final against China's An Qixuan. In the second set she placed her three arrows within three centimetres of one another inside the target's inner-10 ring, a feat  lauded by Mike Rowbottom of "Inside the Games" as "possibly the single best recurve group ever filmed". One month later she was defeated in the final of the World Cup's second stage in Antalya by Ksenia Perova, her second loss against Perova in twelve months. In August 2018 Chang competed in the Asian Games in Jakarta alongside Kang Chae-young, Lee Eun-gyeong, and Lee Woo-seok. Although she was praised by the "Korea JoongAng Daily" for her consistency after retaining her place in the team for a fifth consecutive year, Chang delivered an uneven performance in her events  and suffered quarter-final defeats in both the women's individual and mixed team events before winning gold in the women's team event. These results ran contrary to expectations of her winning gold in all three events and came amid wider South Korean sporting disappointments at the Games. The "Korea JoongAng Daily" suggested that the pressure placed on her shoulders to succeed contributed to her inconsistent form, commenting that her "struggle seemed to be more mental than a lack of skill." Chang was later eliminated from the World Cup's final stage by the eventual runner-up Yasemin Anagoz  in September, but maintained her position as the World Archery Federation's number one-ranked female recurve archer at the end of the year. 2019–2021. Chang partnered Choi Mi-sun and Kang Chae-young at the 2019 World Championships, achieving a silver medal in the women's team event after the trio lost to perennial rivals Taiwan in the final. By July of that year Chang had been identified by the magazine "Bow International" as having noticeably dipped in form since the beginning of 2018, and in September she was eliminated from the national selection process for the 2020 Summer  Olympics after finishing outside the top 20 qualifiers. She was however afforded a second opportunity to qualify after the COVID-19 pandemic forced the postponement of the Olympics until the following year. She was eliminated from contention for the second time in March 2021.