Olympic champ Bo-Bae ends Shehzana’s Rio run

Olympics champion and world record holder, South Korean Ki Bo-Bae proved a step too far for Kenya’s lone archer, Shehzana Anwar, in the women individual round of 32 competition at the Rio 2016 Olympics.

The three-time Olympics gold winner and world champion claimed a crushing 7-1 victory against the 26 year-old debutant who nonetheless took pride in scaling the biggest sporting competition on earth.

“I wanted to try and keep up with her as much as possible and I succeeded save for one arrow. Bo Bae is so good and I wished I could stand behind her and learn something, especially her consistency.

“The experience has been great and I’ve learnt a lot and will try to use that in future,” the African champion who was seeded 62nd in the preliminary round said.

Bo-Bae scored two points in the first (26-24), second (26-23) and fourth (27-26) sets with Shehzana tying the third 1-1 (26-26) to decide the shoot-out on an aggregate score of 105-99.

‘Kuki’ as she is fondly known will carry great memories from Rio 2016, not least entering the iconic Maracana Stadium on Friday with the nation’s flag during the opening ceremony.

She however, faced almost insurmountable odds to qualify for the round of 16 after being paired by the South Korean who finished third in the preliminaries.

The current world archery champion, Bo-Bae won two golds at London 2012, in the individual and team events. That same year, the athlete from the Republic of Korea also won the world cup title.

She came to the round of 32 clash with a gold already in Rio 2016 having helped her nation win the women’s team event for an eighth Olympics in a row when the Koreans crushed Russia 5-1 with their dominance continuing since the sport was introduced at the 1984 edition.

Despite challenging winds in the Sambodromo, the trio of Ki Bobae, Choi Misun and Chang Hyejin shot superbly.

Korea’s dominance in the team event continued on the Olympic stage, the country having won every competition since the event’s introduction in 1984.

In the round of 64, Bo-Bae finished behind compatriots Misun Choi and Chang Hyejin whom they teamed up to win the top medal against Russia.

Bo-Bae holds the world record with a total score of 686 as she advanced to seek her second gold in Brazil.

Additional reporting by Charity Wanja