Written by Junyu Zhao, Edited by Ke Yue
Applicability of the Korea Archery National Team’s Pure Meritocracy
Ever since the inception of archery in the modern Olympic Games, the Korean Archery National Team (KANAT) has been one of the most dominant forces in a sport largely based on objective metrics. This unparalleled success is exemplified by the Women's Team category, which has never lost an Olympic team title since its introduction in 1988, achieving a remarkable four decades of absolute domination. This extraordinary record is largely attributed to the team's relentless application of pure meritocracy. This article examines the application and consequences of this pure meritocratic system, using the enduring success of the KANAT as a primary case study. We argue that for entities operating under uncompromising, objective metrics where mediocrity risks obsolescence, an existential threat, a pure meritocratic structure is not merely optimal, but fundamentally required. The KANAT’s structure, which relentlessly prioritises performance and consistency over legacy, offers a critical lens to understand why a pure meritocracy must take unequivocal precedence over all other non-mandatory considerations in such high-stakes environments, even while acknowledging the system's inherent human and social costs.
The selection structure of the KANAT, managed by the Korea Archery Association (KAA), is defined by its pure meritocracy, a concept distinct from the objective measurement that enables it. Meritocracy is a system where status is bestowed purely on merit, meaning demonstrated ability or performance. Archery is a fitting scenario to demonstrate this concept, as it has an objective metric due to the numerical score system. The KANAT's pure meritocracy, therefore, is the design choice to select and maintain status based only on the results of the objective performance metric, irrespective of any other factor. To briefly explain the process without the technicalities, it is held annually, with national team status only maintained for one year, regardless of past or present performance. This annual re-selection ensures that only current merit counts, embodying the "no safety net" aspect of the system. The qualifications are held in three stages, with 100 qualified participants per category, and only the top 8 are selected as the national team. The Korean national archers then undergo multiple rounds of evaluation matches to determine their eligibility to participate as the National A or B team. The former represents the nation in top-level competitions such as World Cups, World Championships, and the Olympics, while the latter competes at a lower level, such as Asia Cup Stage Competitions.
Comparatively, the rest of the world adopts some variant of this structure, such as the requirement of recent national titles, multiple-year national team status, a complicated structure, or the rule that the highest one-time score gets the spot. Many of the structures mentioned boil down to efficiency. The KAA took a different approach; they lowered the
barrier to entry, tried out everyone despite their legacy, and implemented a simple structure that went through multiple rounds to select the most consistent performers amongst the best.
The performance and contribution to the vast talent pool of Korean archers can be attributed to archery's cultural significance, excellent coaching history from past Olympic champions, and the conditioning training provided by the association. The most important and likely differentiating and competitive advantage of the KAA is their efficient and well-thought-out implementation of meritocracy.
Meritocracy is an extremely prominent principle in Korean archery; it starts early in the education system. The sport is integrated starting in elementary schools, and the archers undergo intensive training, five to six days a week, with several hours invested in the sport. The young archers often shoot a staggering 300–500 arrows a day, comparable to the national teams of other nations. The coaching and progression through the sport are regulated; elementary schools often start with low bow weights and slowly allow students to increase in distance and weight as they progress to middle and high school, with a continuous flow of experienced archers. By the time they graduate or are in college, they join professional or corporate teams, often sponsored by major companies such as sports universities, Hyundai, or even city offices such as Cheongju City Hall. The system has created an enormous talent pool available to the KAA. Archery is a fitting scenario to demonstrate the concept of meritocracy; it has an objective metric, due to the numerical score system, and the other variable is fairness. The KANAT prides itself on a meritocratic system. To ensure procedural fairness, the association promotes archery throughout the education system, remains completely transparent during its selection process, and clearly defines the definition of merit to recognise performance and consistency.
The KANAT pure meritocracy, facilitated by objective scoring, leads to a repeating, dramatic phenomenon: the relentless turnover of champions. To cite an example, An San was an archer largely unknown who suddenly stormed the selection scene in the lead-up to the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games and made the top 3 of the National A team. She subsequently swept all three individual Olympic gold medals available, instantly turning into a celebrity athlete. However, despite her strong post-Olympic performance, she did not manage to qualify even for the top 8 the following year. This frequent cycling of talent is the most prevalent in the female team. Time and time again, history repeats itself: a renowned archer fails to qualify for the national
team, and an unknown archer such as Lim Si-Hyeon in 2024 Paris Olympics, subsequently dominates the scene. This pattern underscores the existential requirement for the system's design. The KANAT's pure meritocracy demonstrates that the relentless focus is on consistency under competitive pressure, not on the singular peak performance of the Olympics or other competitions of similar magnitude. An Olympic gold, while the ultimate prize, can be seen as having an element of situational luck; it is a one-time event. The three stage, annual national selection process, in contrast, demands performance consistency over multiple, grueling rounds, every single year. The system, therefore, is not designed to reward past merit, but to test current, ongoing sustained competence. The failure of past champions to qualify does not necessarily prove they are less skilled; rather, it proves that the system's objective, selecting the most consistently competent archers for the coming year, takes
unequivocal precedence over even the highest possible legacy. This uncompromising selection structure is precisely what is fundamentally required to mitigate the existential risk of failure for the entire entity.
While the objective selection process is ruthless, the Korean archery system faces significant criticism for its inherent social and human costs. The first major critique concerns access and opportunity. The system's foundational reliance on early specialisation, with the sport integrated starting in elementary schools, creates a conditional meritocracy at the point of access. This structure may promote elitism at a young age, as it is seen as exclusive to parts of society where specialised elementary schools are not accessible. This lack of meritocracy of opportunity results in a loss of talent pool, as it is generally not accommodating to late bloomers who lack the requisite elementary training experience. However, this inherent inequality of opportunity does not negate the purity of the meritocracy at the point of selection. The system's "pure" nature refers to its uncompromising selection design, where once an archer is in the pool, the objective score system and completely transparent process dictate success or failure, independent of background, legacy, or identity. The second major critique concerns the personal cost of this pure design. The long, gruelling process leads to considerable stress on participants and often results in talent burnout, causing top performers to drop out over time. An inherent downside is the lack of a safety net for current top archers; despite their records, even multiple World Championships and Olympic titles in the previous year, the system offers absolutely no support or retention bonus for the individual. This is an added pressure, as many of these national team archers have their livelihood and personal identity tied to their sporting success. It is not uncommon to see ex-KANAT archers showing emotional distress or pessimism on live broadcasts. For the KANAT, the existential pressure to maintain dominance structurally demands that meritocracy of outcome, the selection of the most consistent performers, take unequivocal precedence over addressing pre-existing inequalities of opportunity. It is widely known in the archery community that making the KANAT is harder than winning the Olympic Games, and the results show it.
The case study demonstrates an example of a pure meritocratic system; the association created a structure of fairness from elementary school to Olympic champions and achieved 40 years of dominance unheard of in any other sport. This model has parallels in other societal institutions that prioritise performance-based selection. Take the example of a less extreme but still fairly meritocratic process, that of the Singaporean Public Service Commission (PSC) Scholarship. The education system in Singapore is universal and compulsory; students go through an objective grading process as they progress through the educational hierarchy, and undoubtedly, it produces some of the world's greatest public servants, although on a more subjective basis. One has to consider: the structure was designed on the principles of meritocracy and yielded an outcome desirable in a meritocracy, but is it possible that there are many individuals or even segments of society left out of the process? No matter how applaudable the results, one must consider the effect of such a good system and acknowledge its flaws, however marginally insignificant to the results they may be.
The KANAT's case study, therefore, presents a distinct set of conditions where the uncompromising nature of pure meritocracy is not only effective but structurally necessary.
These conditions must be assessed to determine the transferability of this system to other domains. Arguably, the principle of pure meritocracy finds its necessary application in existential situations, where demanding uncompromising competence is acceptable precisely because mediocrity and existence are mutually exclusive, and the alternative is the obsolescence of the entire entity.
To illustrate the necessary application of a pure meritocratic structure, we can contrast two examples: the hiring process of a global quantitative hedge fund firm and university admissions to the Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS). If all else is equal, the immediate objective of both selections is to pick the absolute best for the position. Starting with the hedge fund, its primary purpose is defined by a single objective metric: generating the highest returns for its investors using sophisticated models. Accordingly, it hires heavily on a technical basis through multiple rounds of gruelling assessments. The survival of the hedge fund is entirely dependent on its return on investment profile. A failure to deliver compared to a competitor results in the firm becoming obsolete; in finance, this failure is existentially detrimental. Therefore, its fundamental nature dictates that performance must take unequivocal precedence over all other non-mandatory considerations, making a pure meritocratic system structurally required. The MBBS admission process, however, does not share the same existential threat. While mediocrity in healthcare is certainly not optimal, the existence of the healthcare system itself is not mutually exclusive with mediocrity. Hence, there is no absolute requirement for a pure meritocratic system. This absence of an existential imperative is why the discussion around holistic admissions, which considers correlations to higher overall entity performance, is often relevant and permissible in this domain, as the selection criteria are not strictly limited to a single, uncompromising objective metric.
The Korea Archery National Team selection shares an existential risk similar to that of the quantitative hedge fund. A failure in its selection process due to an inferior system would result in poor performance and potentially cause an existential issue with regard to state and private-sponsored support for the sport, initiating a downward spiral of the team’s funding and eventual demise. Therefore, the KANAT model demonstrates that pure meritocracy is not a universal good but a specific tool for specific, high-stakes contexts where existence and performance are inextricably linked.
Rather than asking 'when' or 'how' the technicalities could be implemented, I challenge the readers to consider the 'should'. Should a pure meritocracy be implemented in any other areas of our lives? Considering a pure meritocracy in a wider picture, we should question whether it is morally right, economically efficient, and, most importantly, consider the possibility of policy enactment that results in the betterment of society. This necessarily involves weighing the tension between these values: is the economic efficiency and dominance achieved by a system like the KANAT worth the moral cost of the opportunity inequality and human burnout it creates?