Defending champion Yun Mi-jin of South Korea eased closer to a second successive Olympics archery gold yesterday as Greek organizers added an historical flourish to the event.

The tournament, which has four rounds still to run, is being staged at the Panathinaiko Stadium which hosted the first modern Games 108 years ago.

Yun, still only 21 and who captured the world championship in New York last year, saw off Sayami Matsushita of Japan 173-149 to stay on track to become the only woman to defend her individual crown since archery returned to the Games in 1972.

Her coach predicted medal glory after watching her tie the Olympic record.

“Today the wind died down and she controlled the match easily,” said Seo Geo-won.

“I believe she will win the gold medal and, in the next round, break the Olympic record.”

South Korean women have won gold in the last five Olympic individual archery events as well as the last four team golds.

Also going through were fellow Koreans Park Sung-hyun, who set a new world record in the ranking round at the weekend, with a 165-148 win over Russia’s Natalia Bolotova.

Lee Sung-jin also eased through with a 166-146 victory against Elpida Romanitzi of Greece.

However, there was disappointment for Bhutan whose only two competitors at the Games crashed out — Tshering Chooden in the women’s event and then Tashi Peljor in the men’s.

Chooden went down in a tie-break to India’s Reena Kumari losing 7-4 after both archers had been locked at 134-134.

Later in the day, Anton Prylepav of Belarus defeated Peljor 155-152.

Also going out of the men’s event was reigning world champion Michele Frangilli of Italy as well as second seeded Swede Magnus Petersson.

Frangilli lost 162-154 to Japanese veteran Hiroshi Yamamoto while Petersson went down 163-162 to Britain’s Laurence Godfrey.

The three Koreans in the draw all went through.

Park Kyung-mo saw off Kazakhstan’s Stanislav Zabrodskiy in a shootout after being ties 164-164, Jang Yong-Ho defeated Japan’s Takaharu Furukawa 166-163 while Im Dong Hyun saw off Alexandros Karageorigiou 171-159.