Ki Bo-bae

Ki Bo-bae (; or ; born February 20, 1988) is a South Korean recurve archer and three-time Olympic gold medalist. She was the winner of the women's team and women's individual events at the 2012 Summer Olympics and of the women's team event again at the 2016 Summer Olympics, where she also took bronze in the individual competition. Her tally of four Olympic medals places her among the most decorated archers in Olympic history.

Ki was introduced to archery in primary school and by 2010 was a member of the South Korean national team. In addition to the Olympics she has achieved gold medals at the World Archery Championships - becoming the women's recurve world champion in 2015 - the Asian Games, and the Summer Universiade, and is a three-time winner at the Archery World Cup finals. From 2015 to 2017 she held the world record score for the women's 72-arrow round and has twice held the position as the women's world number one in the World Archery Rankings.

Early and personal life Ki Bo-bae was born on February 20, 1988.

In 2015, Ki was a graduate student at Gwangju Women's University, which allowed her to compete at the 2015 Summer Universiade, and as of 2017 she was pursuing a doctorate degree. She has expressed an interest in working with athletes of the Paralympic Games

Ki acted as a torchbearer for the 2018 Winter Olympics torch relay.

Career 2010–2011: Early accolades Ki was selected for the South Korean archery team alongside Joo Hyun-jung and Yun Ok-hee to contest the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou. Although eliminated by Cheng Meng of China in the quarter-finals of the women's individual competition, she won the gold medal in the women's event with Joo and Yun after the trio defeated the Chinese team in the final. At the 2011 Archery World Cup's second stage in Antalya she achieved a further team gold medal as well as a silver medal in the individual competition, finishing as runner-up to teammate Jung Dasomi. She later took what would be the first of three mixed team titles at the 2011 World Archery Championships.

2012: Double Olympic Champion

The 2012 Summer Olympics in London was Ki's first appearance at the Olympics.

Ki and her teammates Lee and Choi delivered a narrow win over China in the final of the women's team event, which was contested prior to the individual event, to claim their nation's seventh consecutive Olympic gold medal in the discipline. As the third and final archer in the team's shooting sequence Ki was responsible for what became the final arrow of the match, securing victory over their Chinese rivals for the third successive Olympics by a single point. Ki won her second gold medal of the Games in the women's individual event contested later in the week, defeating Mexico's Aída Román in a closely fought final which necessitated a one-arrow shoot-off to determine the winner. Having tied 5-5 on set points over the preceding five sets of three arrows each, Ki and Román were both required to shoot a single tie-breaking arrow at the target with the archer firing closest to the centre winning. The pair both proceeded to shoot their arrows into the 8-ring of the target, but as Ki's effort was judged to have landed marginally closer to the centre, she was awarded the gold medal.

Ki was the sole member of the South Korean women's archery team to win two Olympic medals in London. Speaking in a press conference after the final Ki tearfully apologised for her final arrow, stating that "Koreans do not shoot eights". She also admitted she did not watch Roman's shoot her arrow because she was too deep in prayer. She qualified for the final stage held in Tokyo in September, where she advanced to the gold medal match and came from behind to defeat India's Deepika Kumari.

2013–2015: Break and world record In 2013 Ki won two gold medals at that year's World Archery Championships in Belek, taking her second mixed team title with Oh Jin-hyek Defeat to Denmark's Maja Jager however eliminated her from contention for the individual crown.

After shooting poorly in the national trials for the upcoming Asian Games in Incheon Ki was not selected for the national team in 2014, In an interview in the newspaper JoongAng Ilbo published at the end of the year Ki reflected that her initial response to her non-selection was one of relief, having gained freedom the strict training regimen by which team members had to abide. She later acknowledged that she had "relaxed too much" during the trials and lost her mental focus. motivated her to work to return to the national squad.

In 2015 Ki returned to the national team after finishing the national trials in first place. Ki's subsequent victory over Choi in the final of the women's individual event represented her first gold medal win since the Archery World Cup almost three years earlier. She additionally won gold in the mixed team event. She was considered one of the favourites to win gold medal in the women's individual and team events, success in which would make her the first archer to defend an individual Olympic title and bring her level with the four career Olympic gold medals achieved by Kim Soo-nyung,

Ki, Chang, and Choi concluded the women's team event with victory over Russia in the final, securing her third Olympic gold medal and South Korea's eighth consecutive Olympic women's team title. Afterwards she spoke of the high expectations and pressure placed on the team to continue their winning streak, but noted "we just continued working together and having very strong team work and it proved to be right". Ki's bid to become the first Olympic archer to retain their individual title was ended by Chang in the semi-finals, who outshot Ki in what Reuters described as an "upset" result. Ki went on to defeat fellow losing semi-finalist Alejandra Valencia of Mexico in the third-placed match to win the bronze medal.

Ki won her second Archery World Cup title in Odense in September, defeating Choi in the final to become the second female repeat winner in the tournament's history. The following year she achieved her third World Cup title in Rome with victory over Ksenia Perova.