The ancient sport of archery
has a fractured Olympic history.
It was included in the Olympics of 1900.
It was also one of the first sports
that women were allowed to take part in.
In 1908, Queenie Newall was an icon of archery.
She cleaned up at the London Olympics.
But after 1920, there was nothing.
There were too many different rules.
Each country had their own ideas on how far
the target should be,
or how many arrows someone should use.
It was dropped entirely from the Olympic programme.
It wasn't until 1972
that archery was back at the Olympics.
But with one key element missing - South Korea.
Korea had a rich history of archery.
The Chinese used to refer to them as Dongyi-jok, which means
"eastern tribe with large bows".
Their version of the sport
was not in line with the modern form of archery.
That changed in the 1970s when student Kim Jin-ho won
the country's first World Championship medal.
It transformed the popularity of the sport in Korea.
Suddenly, more people than ever
wanted to be involved in archery.
By 1984, the women's archery team was starting to resemble
the form we know today.
They took home their first individual Olympic gold.
In 1988, the team event was added to the Olympics alongside
the individual competition.
That year, competing in their home games,
the Korea women took home both golds.
In 1992, two more.
1996?
Yep, two more golds for Korea.
In 2000, it wasn't even a contest.
Another two golds.
By 2004, if there were any doubts
about just how dominant Korea were,
they came to a head in a final
that China thought they had won,
only for Park Sung-hyun
to hit a perfect ten with the last arrow
and win the match by a point.
Two more gold medals.
How do they do it?
Well, in Korea, they take archery very seriously.
It's not just that Korean children start learning archery
earlier than most countries,
or that they sign for professional companies
where their only job is to play archery all day,
but they also have some of the most amazing ways
to train in the world.
A lot of archery comes down to how you deal with pressure.
When the crowd is baying down on you, how do you cope?
For the 2008 Olympics, they went as far as
replicating the stadium archery was being held in,
with crowd noises supplied by a boom box.
Before 2000 and 2004,
they trained before a baseball stadium
with a full crowd willing them on.
But sometimes their coaches take things even further.
When gold medallist Cho Youn-Jeong
was asked how she kept her nerves calm,
she told reporters she used to go for a long walk...
..at night through a cemetery.
Kim Kyung-wook was told by her trainer to pick up
a live snake and lightly bite it.
If it's scary, Korean trainers have probably already used it
as a method to keep their women focused.
All that training is necessary, the pressure can get to you.
Ah. Gosh. It's harder than it looks.
Oops.
In Beijing, for the first time since 1980,
a non-Korean won the individual gold in a major upset.
There wouldn't be an upset in the team event.
That meant that Korean women
had taken home every gold team archery medal ever.
2012, and once again, they were in the final,
and against a Chinese side
that had lost out in the last two Olympics,
desperate for revenge.
At the halfway point, the teams were level.
Then a lucky break for Korea -
a close call on a nine gets marked up to a ten.
Korea take the lead.
The final end approaches.
China have a great round - all nines.
It's all down to the three athletes on the field now.
Thousands of people watching in the stadium.
50 million people in Korea expecting you to win.
Choi Hyeonju falters - an eight.
It all comes down to this last arrow.
Six gold-medal winning teams before.
Get another eight and it will be deadlocked.
Less and it will be a disaster. The final arrow of their
Olympics, four years working towards this moment.
Hit - it's gold and glory.
Miss - the first team not to bring back gold.
But Korea train for just these moments.
Seven golds from seven games and the domination goes on.
And all that training proves its worth once again.