More Than What Meets The Eye: A Blind Olympians’ Rise To International Success

by Jon Schulte

Im Dong-hyun preparing a bulls-eye worthy shot. 

On the outside, Im Dong-hyun seems like a regular, proud Korean Olympian participating in the London Olympic Games. But, Im is unique. Im is legally blind. Having only 10% vision in his left eye, and 20% in his right, archery sounds like the LAST thing he would be good at. But, somehow, he can hit the small yellow target perfectly, not just once, but multiple times, to the point that he broke his own record as well as the world record on Friday, July 27th, scoring 699 points with a 72-arrow mark, leaving all competition in the dust. Along with his impressive record breaking score, his Korean Olympic team of Im, Kim Bubmin, and Oh Jin-hyek, even with a sudden rain storm halfway through, claimed the first place ranking and a new world record in archery with an impressive 2,087 points, beating the previous world record by 18 points using a total of 216 arrows.

Being a blind archer, Im has a different tactic of getting his surplus of successful shots. Im is able to see faint shapes, and miraculously can tell the difference on an archery target from 75 yards away. Another interesting fact about Im is that he doesn't wear any sort of vision correcting aid while shooting, but relies on the bright colors of the target to guide him. Staring down the shaft of an arrow, Im is able to see just barely enough detail to fire, and hit the bulls-eye several times in a row. "This is just the first round, so I will not get too excited about it," said Im, who by now has claimed the 2004 and 2008 gold medals in the Olympic event.

In the RR (Ranking Round) event, France (2021 points), China (2019), and the U.S. (2019) followed behind, the U.S. being the previously ranked No. 1 team for the event after beating South Korea in London last October. "We will have a day of rest now and prepare for tomorrow," said Im on the gold-medal match on Saturday, July 28th. Even through the success of Im, in the final round for the gold medal, Italy and the U.S. were the two competing after Italy's success in the Semi-Final round over Mexico’s team, and the U.S. overcoming Korea in the Semi-Final round. Competing for Bronze medal spot are the men's teams from Mexico and Korea. At the end of the day, Italy’s men’s archery team took Olympic gold, the U.S. claimed silver, and Im and the rest of his South Korean team took the bronze medal.

Even though for the first time in two summer Olympic Games the South Korean team did not steal gold on the world's stage, they have shown that even with the worst circumstances, you can do great things, beat records, and beat the odds. Im will be seen again in Rio de Janeiro 2016 Summer Olympic Games, ready for more and hoping to claim his third gold medal in the same event.