South Korea won its 10th consecutive gold medal in women's team archery in a nail-biting shoot-off as three first-time Olympians — Lim Shi-Hyeon, Nam Su-Hyeon and Jeon Hun-Young — held off China 5-4 at the Paris Games on Sunday. China took the silver medal and Mexico won bronze.
The win means South Korea maintained its complete dominance of the event, winning every gold medal since women's team archery was introduced at the Olympics in 1988.
After winning the first two sets of the match, the South Korean women began to struggle, allowing China to level the score in the next two sets.
Lim acknowledged that her country's unbroken streak in the event was facing stronger competition, but said South Korea would continue to defend its position.
"I'm very happy about keeping this place in Korean archery history," she said. "Even though other countries have progressed, we'll try to keep our place."
The shoot-off in the gold medal match was made even more intense when two of South Korea's arrows were reviewed for landing in between two of the scoring rings on the target circle.
The crowd at Esplanade des Invalides, many waving South Korean flags, roared when the shots were awarded the higher point, resulting in the gold medal.
Team members were treated like celebrities, as earlier in the day, some fans held signs written in Korean above fences around the venue and stood on tip-toes to get a peak at the athletes.
Mexico's bronze medal marks its first of the Paris Games. Additionally, Alejandra Valencia became the first Mexican archer to win multiple Olympic medals after winning bronze in the mixed team event during the Tokyo Games.
Seeded eighth in the 12-team field, the United States team, featuring Casey Kaufhold, Jennifer Mucino-Fernandez and Catalina GNoriega, lost its first-round match to ninth-seeded Chinese Taipei.
NBC Olympics contributed to this story.