- An San (+400) and Kang Chae-Young (+400) have favored odds to win the women’s archery gold medal.
- An San set a new world record in the individual qualification event while Kang Chae-Young won the 2019 Archery World Cup gold medal.
TOKYO - South Korea has already taken the mixed team archery gold medal, and now, they’ll look to add another gold medal to their case in the sport. An San and Kim Je-Deok were the mixed team specialists who took the gold medal, and the 20-year-old An San is a dominant competitor in the women’s archery Individual event as well.
In fact, her qualification score set a new Olympic record, as she recorded 680 out of a total 720 points in the individual qualification round.
According to the online sportsbooks, her closest competition comes from fellow Korean Kang Chae-Young.
Nicknamed “The Destroyer”, Kang Chae-Young is a highly decorated athlete. She won the 2019 Archery World Cup gold medal in the recurve category, and was the 2019 World Archery Athlete of the Year in that category as well.
The two women teamed up with Jang Min-Hee to take an easy gold medal in the Women’s Team event, dominating the Russian Olympic Committee en route to Korea’s ninth consecutive gold medal in the event.
Tokyo 2021 - Women's Archery Odds
- An San (KOR) +400
- Kang Chae-Young (KOR) +400
- Deepika Kumari (IND) +700
- Jang Min-Hee (KOR) +1000
- Lisa Barbelin (FRA) +1200
- Mackenzie Brown (USA) +1200
- Tan Ya-Ting (CTE) +1200
- Lei Chien-Ying (CTE) +1400
- Alehandra Valencia Trujillo (MEX) +1600
- Lisa Unruh (GER) +1600
In case it hasn’t been made clear by this point, women’s archery is a sport that is utterly dominated by Korea. Archery was reintroduced to the Olympics in 1988, when they were held in the capital of the Republic of Korea, Seoul.
Since that time, Korea’s women’s archery team hasn’t lost a single match. Their only competition in the individual rounds seems to be themselves, and Deepika Kumari of India.
Kumari carries the hopes of more than a billion people in India, but the number one ranked archer in the world according to World Archery finds herself a relative dark horse next to the dominant pair of Koreans.
This is to say nothing of Jang Min-Hee, who is fourth on the odds boards, and a dominant archer in her own right, who helped An San and Kang Chae-Young claim the gold medal in the women’s team event.
It seems like one of the women from Korea will be taking home the gold in this event, but which one will it be? Only time - and the online gambling markets - will tell.