Since the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games, South Korean archers never let a gold medal slip off their hands in women's event. Their lead over the rest of the world seems to have expanded on Sunday.

South Korean archers just shot 231 points to set a new world record in women's team semifinals against Italy.

Olympic double champion Park Sung-hyun, combining with her Korean teammates Yun Ok-Hee and Joo Hyun-Jung shot out 11 tens and 9 nines in the 24-arrow women's elimination round, scoring a total of 231.

The previous world record was also from the hands of South Korean archers in 228 produced by Yun Ok Hee, Yun Mi Jin and Lee Tuk Young in Shanghai's World Cup in 2006.

One day earlier, Park Sung-hyun tied the Olympic record in the ranking round.

Park's score of 673 in the individual ranking equaled the Olympic record set by Lina Herasymenko of the Ukraine in 1996. Park is also the world record holder with 682 mark in the same round in 2004.

South Korean Yun Ok-hee, who holds the world's No. 1 ranking, finished second with a score of 667, while their teammate Joo Hyun-jung followed up in third with a score of 664.

In the individual ranking, all three Koreans just carved up the top three places.

Coming to the team's ranking race, the Koreans turned out a new 216-arrow Olympic record.

Park scored 673 points, along with her teammates Yun Ok-Hee (667) and Joo Hyun-Jung (664), setting an Olympic record of 2,004 points.

The mark eclipsed the previous record of 1,994, also set by South Korea at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.

At the Athens Games, South Korea needed a last-arrow effort to defeat China in the final. They are just poised to sprint away from any threat in the Olympic archery field.

(Xinhua News Agency August 10, 2008)