Seoul, Korea, January 2, 2024: Korea’s triple Asian Games champion Lim Si-hyeon has been named Female Archer of the Year by world governing body World Archery.
Lim, 20, won gold in mixed team, women’s team and women’s recurve individual at the Hangzhou Asian Games.
Reigning Olympic and World Archery champion Mete Gazoz (Türkiye) finished top of the public vote to collect the recurve men’s trophy, while Asian Para Games champion Sheetal Devi (India) – the first female para athlete without arms to compete internationally – won the compound women’s category to become the first archer from India to ever receive a World Archery award.
Hyundai Archery World Cup champion Sara Lopez (Colombia), double circuit stage winners Lim Si-hyeon (Korea) and Jozef Bosansky (Slovakia), and Paralympian Guillaume Toucoullet (France) complete the division winners.
The winners of the division categories were decided by a weighted public, institutional and press vote, which opened in mid-November and ran for one month. More than 750,000 votes were cast.
As well as Sheetal Devi becoming the first Indian archer to receive an end-of-year award, Jozef Bosansky becomes the first archer from Slovakia and the oldest able-bodied athlete, at 47, to pick up a trophy.
World Archery launched its annual awards in 2011, began recognising division winners in 2014 and reintroduced the overall title in 2022.