Racial Profiling at the Olympics

"South Korean women have more sensitive hands than any other women in the world.  They do things so well with their hands.  When Korean women cook, it's as if their hands are giving the food more flavour or taste.  Doctors talk about chopstick technology.  Our women archers have excellent feeling with their fingers.  They know whether they shot well or not immediately after the arrow leaves their fingers."  Baek Woong-gi, South Korean national team archery coach

Give credit where it's due. And South Korean women have proven themselves to be gold-medal champions.  Since women's archery was introduced at the 1988 Games in Seoul, South Korean female archers have traipsed lightly all over the competition.   They have now won their seventh consecutive women's team gold medal.

In fact, they have the rare distinction of representing the only country in the world that has competed in the Olympics to come away with the gold.  They have taken possession of 13 of the 14 team and individual archery gold medals contested since 1984.  There is obviously something unique and quite wonderful about this.

Might the ancient world's famed Amazons really have emanated from South Korea, and not from Turkey?  Perhaps not; no one ever wrote of South Korean women living exclusive from men, retaining some men as slaves to aid in reproduction, retaining only female babies on birth, and removing a breast to enable them to draw a bow with more ease.

There must be a reason for such uniquely developed skills, hands and fingers that unerringly match the eye's trajectory for accurate bowmanship.  And it might be held in the fact that unlike other Asian countries, Korean chopsticks are constructed of slender, slippery steel, requiring care and skill to manipulate them successfully.

South Koreans are proud of this distinction their women bring them at the world's elite athletic competition meet.  "I think it is in our blood to be good at shooting arrows.  I don't know, it just feels that to be a Korean is to be a good archer", explained Lee Sung-jin, one of the women's champion team members.


One of her teammates is not quite as sanguine: "It's easier to win an Olympic gold medal than to get on the Korean national archery team, I really feel that", protested Ki Bo-bae, ahead of the Games.