Lee Sung-jin

Lore & Background

Lee Sung-jin made her Olympic debut aged nineteen at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, joining the defending Olympic champion Yun Mi-jin and the 2001 World Champion Park Sung-hyun on the South Korean women's team. In the preliminary ranking round, Lee, Park, and Yun broke the world record for the combined team score over 216 arrows, their total of 2,030 points from a maximum of 2,160 eclipsing the previous best set by the South Korean team at the 2000 Olympics. The score was nevertheless not classified as a new Olympic record because the ranking round took place prior to the opening ceremony. Lee's personal 72-arrow score earned her the second seed for the women's individual event.

In the individual elimination rounds, Lee defeated Lamia Bahnasawy of Egypt, Elpida Romantzi of Greece, and Margarita Galinovskaya of Russia before facing Wu Hui-ju of Chinese Taipei in the quarterfinals, winning 104–103. She then defeated Yuan Shu-chi of Chinese Taipei in the semifinals 104–98, advancing to the gold medal match against fellow Korean Park Sung-hyun. Lee lost by two points to the 1st-ranked Park, finishing with a silver medal. She was also a member of the team that won the gold medal for Korea in the women's team archery competition.

At the 2012 London Games, Lee took part in her second Olympics as part of the South Korean women's archery team alongside Choi Hyeon-ju and Ki Bo-bae. The trio comfortably defeated Denmark, Japan, and China to win South Korea's seventh successive Olympic gold medal in the discipline. At the 2005 World Championships in Madrid, Lee joined Park Sung-hyun and Lee Tuk-young on the women's recurve squad, where the South Korean team won gold in all four recurve competitions for the first time since 1997. Lee won two gold medals: one in the women's team event and one in the women's individual event, where she defeated Lee Tuk-young in the final by two points.

Reader's Guide

Lee Sung-jin's significance in Olympic archery is marked by her two team gold medals, achieved eight years apart, demonstrating sustained excellence at the highest level. Her debut at the 2004 Athens Games saw her contribute to a world record team score in the ranking round, though it was not classified as an Olympic record due to occurring before the opening ceremony. Individually, she reached the gold medal match in Athens, losing only to her teammate Park Sung-hyun, and earned a silver medal. Her return to the podium in 2012 as part of the South Korean women's team helped extend the nation's unprecedented streak of seven consecutive Olympic golds in the women's team event, a testament to the depth of Korean archery. Beyond the Olympics, her 2005 World Championship victory in the individual recurve event, where she defeated both Park Sung-hyun and Lee Tuk-young, solidified her status as the world number one. The World Archery Federation's 2016 ranking of her as the ninth best Olympic archer in history underscores her legacy within the sport's elite. Her career illustrates the dominance of South Korean women's archery during the 2000s and early 2010s, with her individual silver and team golds forming a key part of that narrative.

Did You Know?

• Lee Sung-jin was part of the South Korean team that broke the world record for combined team score over 216 arrows at the 2004 Olympics, though it was not classified as an Olympic record.
• She won a silver medal in the women's individual event at the 2004 Olympics, losing to fellow Korean Park Sung-hyun.
• At the 2005 World Championships, Lee defeated both Park Sung-hyun and Lee Tuk-young to win the individual gold medal.
• The World Archery Federation named her the ninth best Olympic archer in history in 2016.