Hyundai Motor Chairman Chun Euisun (right) and Korean archers who won the gold medal in women’s team at the Summer Olympics 2024 in Paris
Hyundai Motor Group Chairman Chung Euisun’s love for archery is well-known in South Korea.
The executive chairman of Hyundai Motor Co. and Kia Corp., the world’s third-largest automaker when combined, hardly misses any archery games, particularly in Olympic games, even when he’s busy with his business trips overseas.
Not surprisingly, he showed up at Les Invalides in Paris, rooting for the Korean female archers, who eventually captured their 10th consecutive gold medal in a women’s team event on Sunday – an unprecedented feat for Korea over the four decades.
South Korean archers capture their 10th consecutive gold medal in the women’s archery team at the Summer Olympics 2024 in Paris
“I’ll do anything I can do behind the scenes if it helps our archers. I just want them to stay fit and play well for the rest of the games in Paris,” he said.
Hyundai Motor Group has been the leading sponsor of Korea’s national archery team since 1985, when Chung’s father and the carmaker’s honorary chairman Chung Mong-koo assumed the position of KAA chair.
Chung Euisun took over the top KAA post in 2005.
Hyundai Motor Chairman Chun Euisun (center with sunglasses) holds out a Korean national flag to root for Korean archers who won the gold medal in the women’s team at the Summer Olympics 2024 in Paris
Although he is the head of the world’s third-largest automotive group, he puts everything else aside and visits the archery stadium when the Olympics begin. It was the same with the 2021 Tokyo Olympics and the 2016 Rio Olympics.
Hyundai Motor Group has made sponsorship donations of more than 50 billion won ($36 million) to Korean archery over the last three decades, sources said.
TECHNOLOGY WINS THE RACE
In Korea’s archery community, it is not a secret that Hyundai has developed and applied the latest mechanic technology to improve bow quality and archers’ skills.
Korean archers practicing for the 2024 Summer Olympics
For the Paris Olympics, Hyundai set up a replica of the Les Invalides archery field at Korea’s Olympic training center in Jincheon, North Chungcheong wherein the Korean team could practice.
Before the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, Chung also helped the KAA set up an archery field, modeled after Tokyo’s Yumenoshima Park Archery Field.
The automotive group also developed a bow shooting robot so that archers could compete with it.
Hyundai Motor Chairman Chun Euisun shakes hands with Korean archers who won the gold medal in the women’s team at the Summer Olympics 2024 in Paris
Other cutting-edge devices developed and provided by Hyundai include a multi-lens camera system used for athletes to correct their posture while they engage in outdoor training; a heart-beat measuring device; and a cooling cap designed to enhance their performance even under the sizzling weather.
Hyundai Motor also assisted in the design of custom-made bow grips for the athletes using its 3D printing technology.
During the Rio Olympics, due to security concerns, Chung provided private bodyguard services and bulletproof vehicles to the Korean archery team there.
By Jae-Fu Kim and Jin-Won Kim
hu@hankyung.com
In-Soo Nam edited this article.
