The South Korean women's team set a 216-arrow Olympic archery record as they swept the top three spots in the ranking round at the Olympic Green Archery Field on Saturday.

Park Sung-Hyun (673 points), Yun Ok-Hee (667) and Joo Hyun-Jung (664) combined for a new Olympic record of 2,004 points, which eclipsed the previous mark 1,994 set by South Korea at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.

Alison Williamson and Naomi Folkard led the British team to a surprising second-place ranking by finishing seventh and eighth individually.

China was expected to finish in second place, but was out-shot by Britain by nine points, 1925-1916.

Yuan Shu Chi from Chinese Taipei, who finished in fourth place individually in the Athens 2004 Olympic Games, managed to earn a sixth-place ranking.

Several women finished much lower in the ranking round than expected, and they were Justyna Mospinek in 19th place, Jennifer Nichols of the United States in 24th place and Chinese two-time Olympian Zhang Juanjuan in 27th.

Natalia Valeeva of Italy, the reigning world champion from 2007, finished in a lowly 30th place.

(Xinhua News Agency August 10, 2008)