Olympic archery champion An San to miss out on Paris 2024 after Korean national team trial elimination
Three-time gold medallist An San missed the chance to defend her titles at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, having been eliminated in the third stage of the 2024 Korean national team trials held in her hometown, Gwangju, on Monday, March 11th.
Triple Olympic archery gold medallist An San will not compete at the Paris 2024 Olympics this July, after she suffered a surprise early exit from the third stage of the Korean national team trials, held at Gwangju International Archery Centre.
24 male and 24 female archers from Republic of Korea participated in the third stage, including reigning Olympic women's individual recurve champion An. Her finishing position of 21st meant she fell short of advancing to the fourth round, with the top 16 from each gender progressing.
Last November, An contributed to the Korean women’s team securing a spot for the Paris 2024 Olympics alongside her compatriots, Choi Misun, and reigning Asian Games champion Lim Sihyeon, at the 2023 Asian Archery Championships in Bangkok, Thailand.
As she played a pivotal role in the Korean women’s team winning a ninth consecutive gold medal at Tokyo 2020, An was also expected to lead the team in their bid for an historic 10th gold medal at the Invalid in Paris.
An was also part of the mixed team who won gold in Japan.
However, archery fans will no longer see the first-ever triple Olympic archery gold medalist try to repeat that feat at Paris 2024.
Among Korean archers, the national trials are considered as challenging as the Olympic Games. Several Olympic and world champions have missed out at the trials in previous years.
London 2012 champion Oh Jihyek failed to qualify for Rio 2016 through the national trials, while three-time Olympic gold medalist Ki Bobae and Rio 2016 champion Chang Hyejin faced challenges in navigating this competitive process, preventing them from representing the country in the women’s event at Tokyo 2020 in 2021.
After the third stage of the national trials, the top eight archers in the men’s and women’s events will compete in the two stages of the final trials in March and April. In the end, the top three male and female archers are set to be selected to represent the nation for at Paris 2024.
As National Olympic Committees have the exclusive authority for the representation of their respective countries at the Olympic Games, athletes' participation at the Paris Games depends on their NOC selecting them to represent their delegation at Paris 2024.