Focus on my talent, not my sight, says archer Im Dong-Hyun

LONDON (AFP) –

South Korean archer Im Dong-Hyun, pictured in 2008, lines up at Lord’s on Friday as one of the favourites to hit the target and win Olympic gold. Not bad for an athlete who is legally blind.

South Korean archer Im Dong-Hyun lines up at Lord’s on Friday as one of the favourites to hit the target and win Olympic gold. Not bad for an athlete who is legally blind.

While the unassuming Im resents attention being drawn to his sight, or lack of it, his emergence as one of his country’s, not to say the world’s, top archers is a remarkable tale.

Im would be hard pushed to read a newspaper at arm’s length, yet has no problem in hitting a target the size of a supermarket grapefruit from a distance of 70 metres.

The 26-year-old from Chunbuk is legally blind in his left eye with 20/200 vision.

That means he needs to be 10 times closer to see an object than someone with perfect 20/20 vision.

His right eye, with 20/100 vision, is not a whole lot better.

Yet put a bow in his hand and he is transformed into one of the world’s top athletes, winning team gold at the 2004 and 2008 Olympic Games to add to his four world titles and another four Asian Games gold medals.

Im, who was all smiles after getting a feel for the archery arena at Lord’s on Wednesday, was dismissive when tackled recently on the subject by a South Korean journalist.

“I don’t have a stick, I don’t have a blind dog,” he said.

“It’s unpleasant when people say I’m disabled. All this interest in my sight is not welcome.”

The way Im describes it the task of firing a tiny pointed arrow at a target is akin to a bowman trying to pinpoint the fruit in a still life painting in which the colours have run after being left out in the rain.

“With my vision, when I look at the target, it looks as if different colour paints have been dropped in water,” he explained in an interview with the BBC.

“The boundaries are not that clear and the lines between the colours are very blurred.”

Given his brilliance the question must be raised – just how good could he be without this significant visual impairment?

Yet he refuses to countenance the notion of wearing glasses or undergoing eye surgery, preferring instead to rely on “feel” and being able to pick out the bright colours.

“I’ve practised using glasses before but actually it makes me feel less comfortable when I shoot.

“When I look down the range at the target all I can do is try to distinguish between the different colours. If I couldn’t see the colours, now that would be a problem.”

Im has no difficulty picking out the colour gold, having won team titles in Athens and Beijing, and has set his sight on individual glory in London.

“This is my third attempt at getting the individual medal and if I’m lucky I’ll do it,” he says.