Koreans seal top seedings

South Korea's formidable archery team showed they are on target for a historic clean sweep of Olympic gold medals after setting three world best scores in the ranking round on Thursday.

The arrows were flying thick and fast -- 9,216 in all -- at the training field near the Olympic Village, and all eyes were on the Koreans who completely dominated with an impressive display of archery.

The ranking round decides the seedings for the elimination rounds of the individual and team competitions, which take place next week.

Park Sung-hyun, the world number two, scored 682 points, beating the previous best for the women's individual 72-arrow ranking round set by Italy's Natalia Valeeva in May by three points.

Korean women finished first, second and third in the 64-athlete field and their combined score smashed the previous best team score set by the Koreans at the last Olympics.

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Park, Lee Sung-jin and Yun Mi-jin scored a combined 2030 points, bettering by 36 points the mark set by their compatriots four years ago in Sydney.

In the afternoon session, Im Dong-hyun set Korea's third world best with a tally of 687 points, two better than the previous mark set by his compatriot Shim Young-sung in 1995.

"I feel very good as this is my first time at an Olympics," said Im. "It is good to break a record."

WOMEN DOMINANT

Since making their debut at the 1984 Los Angeles Games, South Korea have won every women's archery event, both individual and team, for a nine-gold streak unmatched in any other sport.

"The women are in really good spirits ... they are feeling very good," Korean coach Jang Young-sool.

"Of course the wind wasn't blowing too much today so we'll have to be ready for that."

Archers are bracing themselves for troublesome wind and glare when they move to compete at the historic Panathinaiko Stadium on Sunday.

In the men's event, Sweden's Magnus Petersson, silver medallist in 1996, pushed Im all the way but eventually faltered when the breeze picked up late in the day.

"They are shooting really well as usual," said Petersson, who equalled his personal best score of 673 to take the second seeding. "I lost my focus a little when the wind picked up ... I did a couple of wrong calculations."

The Korean men also clinched the top seeding in the team event with an identical score to the women, which was only one point outside a men's team world best.