(Olympics) Friends reunite in nick of time for silver in rifle team event

South Korean rifle shooters Park Ha-jun and Keum Ji-hyeon weren't supposed to perform as a team at the Paris Olympics, until a last-minute change brought the pair of 24-year-olds back together. And the move paid off in the form of the silver medal in the 10-meter air rifle mixed team event Saturday, South Korea's very first medal of the 33rd Olympics. Park and Keum lost to Sheng Lihao and Huang Yuting of China 16-12. Shooters each fired single shots, and their combined score became their team's score. The team with the higher mark earned two points, and the goal was to reach 16 points first. Park and Keum won the opening series but dropped the next three. They never led again the rest of the way, though they did cut it to 14-12 before bowing out. The Korea Shooting Federation (KSF) had initially pegged Park and the 16-year-old Ban Hyo-jin as one team, and Keum and Choe Dae-han, 19, as another tandem for the mixed team event. However, the KSF made changes on Thursday and swapped Ban with Keum, saying the latter had been outperforming the former in the days leading up to the Olympics. That Park and Keum had won an International Shooting Sport Federation World Cup title two years ago also factored into that decision, and Keum said she leaned into that old partnership. "We had a lot of trust in each other," Keum said. "Before the Olympics, I told him: 'It'd be great if we got back together as a team. We' could just do it just like old times.'" Park, the more reticent of the two, deadpanned: "We haven't been talking to each other that much. I felt a little awkward around her, but now I feel a little closer to her." The changes left Choe and Ban as an inexperienced team. They finished 22nd out of 28 teams in the qualification stage. During the gold medal match, the two were among the loudest cheerleaders in the stands for Park and Keum. "I hope they can feel inspired by what they saw us do here today," Keum said, in a message to her two younger teammates. Both Park and Keum will now shift their focus to the individual events. The qualification rounds for the men's and women's 10m air rifle are Sunday, followed by the finals on Monday. "My goal is to win the individual gold medal," Keum declared. "I really wanted to beat the Chinese team today. I will be super motivated for the individual event." Park said he was happy to have his hard work rewarded with Saturday's silver but he isn't done yet. "I am confident about the individual event," Park said. "Now that I've already won a medal today, I should be more relaxed tomorrow." Source: Yonhap News Agency