Photo/Illutration From left first placed South Korea's An San, Jang Minhee, and Kang Chaeyoung celebrate on the podium during the medal ceremony of the women's archery team competition at the 2020 Summer Olympics on July 25 in Tokyo. (AP Photo)

A contingent led by An San captured South Korea’s ninth straight women’s archery team event Olympic gold medal on Sunday at the Tokyo Games.

The country has never lost the women’s team event since it was added to the Olympic program at the 1988 Seoul Games.

An, fresh off a win in the Olympic debut of the mixed team competition, combined with Kang Chae Young and Jang Minhee to beat ROC, the acronym for the Russian Olympic Committee, by a final score of 6-0 in tricky wind conditions at Yumenoshima Park Archery Field.

The nine consecutive gold medals in the women’s team competition puts South Korea in some exclusive company. They join the U.S. men’s swimming 4x100 medley relay and the Kenyans in the men’s steeplechase for the longest active Olympic winning streaks.

“It is an honor to show archery of Korea is the best,” Kang said.

Jang secured the win with a score of 9 on her final arrow as South Korea cruised past ROC, which was represented by Svetlana Gomboeva, Elena Osipova and Ksenia Perova.

Gomboeva suffered a scare in the ranking round Friday, when she collapsed because of the extreme heat.

“Indeed, I had a fear I could let down my teammates,” Gomboeva said through an interpreter. “After the incident, I spoke to my coach and said the worst thing is behind me. ... That somehow quieted me down. Today, it was not that bad."

The bronze medal went to Germany after a 5-1 win over Belarus. The German squad was made up of Michelle Kroppen, Charline Schwarz and Lisa Unruh, who wrapped up the medal with a 10 on the final arrow. Unruh was second in the individual competition at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games.

“I was really glad it went down this way,” Unruh said.

The women’s team competition consists of each squad shooting six arrows — two for each athlete — as part of a set. The team with the highest score receives two set points. The first team to pick up five set points is the winner.

One of the elements making things tricky was the breeze, which was made even more difficult to gauge with no fans in the stands to provide a little wind protection.

“Your flags can be saying one thing and where your arrows drift can say something completely different,” explained American Mackenzie Brown, whose team was knocked off by ROC. “It’s hard to plan for. You have to take it for what it is, and go up and make really strong shots and hope for the best.”

The men's team event is Monday, when South Korea will again be the favorite.

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