LONDON – Archery superpower South Korea delivered a stinging reminder of its strength Friday with two world records on the opening day of the London Olympics. Im Dong-hyun, who lost the world No. 1 ranking to American Brady Ellison in 2011, shot 699 to break his own 72 arrow world record in the men's ranking round, and combined with Oh Jin-hyek and Kim Bub-min to set a new team record of 2,087. Kim's score of 698 would also have broken the previous world record of 696, while Oh brought up the rear on 690. Archers can score a maximum of 10 points per arrow by striking the gold circle at the center of the target. The United States, currently the world's No. 1 team and pre-Olympic favorite for gold in London, finished the day ranked fourth behind France and China. Im, who has strong myopia and has to aim at a ‘blob' of color on the target 70 meters away, was pleased to finish top of the ranking round but was characteristically cool on how the competition would play out. “It's only the first round so I won't get too excited about it,” he said. Korea head coach Jang Young-sool was pleased with the scoring on a damp day at Lord's cricket ground, and said that while it was no problem to shoot in the drizzling rain it was a challenge to keep track of the changing conditions. “You can't really expect to break the world record but it's not a big shock or surprise,” he said. “It was good scoring conditions today, we'll just rest and then get ready for the team competition tomorrow.” South Korea's men have won the team titles at the last three Games but never the individual Olympic gold medal. Kim Soo-nyung, who won the individual women's gold in 1988 and three Olympic team golds, said the conditions were ideal for high scores. While it was not the start the United States had been hoping for, Arizona bowman Ellison said they were happy enough with how they shot, even if the scores could have been better. Ellison shot 676 while team mate Jacob Wukie scored 673 and Jake Kaminski 670. Seven years after the British capital won the right to host the Olympics, a hazy and cloudy London celebrated the official start of the 30th version of the Summer Games. After two days of football preliminaries outside London, the city held its first Olympic competition at the hallowed cricket ground. Earlier Friday, Big Ben, one of the city's most recognizable landmarks, chimed for three minutes in honor of the opening ceremony featuring Queen Elizabeth II and directed by celebrated filmmaker Danny Boyle. On Saturday, archery was to present its first medals in men's team competition, part of a blockbuster 19-sport schedule on the first full day of competition. One of the biggest events Saturday will be the men's cycling road race featuring Tour de France winner Bradley Wiggins and world champion Mark Cavendish, who could help give Britain its first gold medal of the games. “It's a dream team,” Cavendish said. “We've got the first and second of the Tour de France, four guys who won stages at the Tour de France, the British champion, four guys incredibly motivated, four guys incredibly patriotic, incredibly loyal to each other.” — Agencies
