Arrow wizardry

If Nobel laureate Amartya Sen took apart the ‘Arrow Impossibility’ of welfare economics, South Korea’s Olympic squad has shot an archery hypothesis with holes: One that held bow-and-arrow precision could not be perfected much more than it had already been down the ages. Its bag of Tokyo medals includes a sweep of archery golds, thanks partly to an industry-sports alliance. Tech advances assisted by Hyundai research and development resources played a key role in its performance.

It helped that Hyundai’s chief Chung Eui-sun was an aficionado of the sport. As head of the Korean Archery Association, he deployed his company’s vision recognition, artificial intelligence and other tools to chisel out better equipment and train archers. It created a contraption to pick the best arrows. It also came up with pulse sensors to enhance feedback analysis and ensure better anxiety training. Apart from customized grips, designed with scans of archers’ hands, the carmaker also gave each of them a customized app for meditation. We haven’t won a gold since Abhinav Bindra’s back in 2008. India Inc. should take inspiration from the South Korean example and try tilting the glittery odds our way.