Even with powerful vision, 70 metres is a challenging distance to hit the bulls-eye. Imagine the challenge for a person whose eyesight is 20/100 and 20/200 in the right and left eye respectively.
With the above reading, South Korea’s Im Dong Hyun is considered legally blind but despite that, amazingly, he is the leading marksman at the Asian Games archery competition.
Im is a champion in scoring teners from 70m. At the 2004 Summer Olympics, he set a world record in the 72 arrow men’s individual ranking round, with a score of 687. In 2006 he competed in Archery at the 2006 Asian Games and won two gold medals — in the individual and team event.
At the Aoti Archery Range , the defending champion looked in terrific form, his arrows hitting the bulls-eye with impressive consistency.
As DNA sought an interview with Im, South Korean newspaper Sportsdonga’s sports reporter, Youn-Hee Jeon, broke the language barrier by volunteering to act as the translator. “I shoot with my feeling. I back my instinct,” Dong Hyun said.
The astonishing part is, how does he zero in on the target from such a long distance when basically the scores in his vision test mean he can see at 20 feet what a person with perfect vision can see at 200 feet? “I identify the target with its different colours — 10 is yellow, red is eight…” he rattles off.
The 25-year-old Seoul-boy said he started archery at the age of 10 and he discovered about his poor vision when he was 17. He said he leads a
normal life, but for the work which invites stress on the eyes. “The only discomfort is that I get tired fast while reading a book or watching TV or sitting on the computer.”
Having become the best archer in the world with the handicap, Im said he doesn’t feel the need for going in for any eye treatment. “I don’t take any special treatment. I am not comfortable with the specs so I don’t wear glasses when I am shooting.Instead, I prefer to train harder and harder to maintain the edge,” said Im, revealing that he trains six to seven hours daily.
At the moment, his focus is to defend his singles title. “I want to win my second straight gold medal. Winning in Doha was special to me. It’s the highest title in Asia and I want to continue to be the best. My form is good but the condition of the ground is so, so. The strong winds here (Guangzhou) are also a factor.”
Can we expect another world record? “Sure, if the wind and temperature are good, I can set the record.” He listed the Indian, Chinese and Taiwanese archers to provide him the main competition. Talking about the Indian archers, he said: “Your expert archer is better than before. Jayant Talukdar has become better and better because you had a Korean coach Lim Chae-Woong.”
Does he sometimes imagine that he could have been better if he had a normal eyesight. “If I had good eyes, I would have maintained the same level,” he said without hesitating.
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