Kim Woojin and Lim Sihyeon made a stylish return to an international shooting line at Shanghai 2025, topping both recurve men and women qualification pools at the second stage of the Hyundai World Cup.
Kim’s last appearance on archery’s premier international circuit was the Tlaxcala 2024 Final, which he won, as was the case for Lim although she finished fifth in October.
“It definitely wasn’t easy, but today I was focusing on keeping my timing short, but then the wind was kind of blowing and giving me a bit of trouble,” said a cheerful reigning Olympic champion Lim. “What I had to do was just keep the timing as short as possible and then luckily the results followed in the end.”
“Maybe it’s a little bit too simple to say, but it was just hard. It was a struggle.”
Lim may have been distressed internally by the charging wind coming from behind the Yuanshen Sports Centre however externally looked anything but as she shot 676 with 13 of the 72-arrows round landing in the minuscule X ring.
She looked as relaxed as ever amongst the 73 competitors in the women’s field and whenever she wanted to reset her process, gave herself plenty of time before restarting – the calmness of an experienced champion at just 21.
Shanghai has also been a platform of unbelievable prosperity for the world number one having never left the city in the prior two World Cups without a podium finish, winning the gold in recurve women individual, team and mixed team in 2023’s edition and nearly did the same last year but ultimately lost the gold medal match to China (women team).
“It’s definitely a special place,” added Lim. “This is my first place that I came to on the national team and was able to get lots of medals last year as well, so it holds a special place for me.”
It was also business usual for Woojin. A reigning Olympic champion too, the 32 year old topped the 91-athlete recurve men field, dropping 695.
