Olympics: Korean Women Are Bullseye-brilliant But French Bronze Leaves Williamson in Tears

This sport doesn't really do dramatics. Its practitioners tend to lock themselves in a box of absolute concentration and present a detached face to the public. Outside influences are best avoided.

But there was no shutting out the storm that blew over the Archery Field just as the semi-finalists were turning into gold or bronze finalists. It fell on the British trio of Alison Williamson, Naomi Folkard and Charlotte Burgess as they lost to China, and it absolutely drenched the French as they did the inevitable and lost to Korea. Western Europe were poured out of the top places by the waters of the Far East.

Of the two European teams, France dried themselves off the better. Sophie Dodemont shot an eight with her last arrow to secure a first-ever medal for the French women's team. It was close, but without Williamson at her best the British team were always chasing the game, as they no doubt say in archery clubs.

When the weather had been kinder in the morning, with no wind and no rumblings of the thunderstorm to come, Korea made a grand entrance. With their first 24 arrows they not only made a good Italian team look decidedly second-best - Natalia Valeeva is the reigning world champion - they also smashed the world record set by themselves, naturally, in Shanghai 2006.

Ranked one, two and three in this tournament, Yun Ok-Hee, Joo Hyun-Jung and the remarkable Park Sung-Hyun rattled up 231 points from a possible 240. They looked a bit sorry that it was not more. They say they have spiritual powers handed down by their ancestors and something special going on in their fingertips. Whatever, they were also on the promise of $50,000 (£25,000) each for winning gold.

Britain had qualified in second place and that meant they would avoid Korea. They beat Japan in the quarter-final despite trailing by a point going into the final six-arrow end. Here Williamson was at her best, scoring a couple of 10s when it really mattered.

With home support behind China, the semi-final was always going to be tough. In vain, the announcer asked the crowd not to blow whistles as the archers were about to shoot. Britain looked a little ill at ease. Not so Korea. With just as many of their own supporters in the stands as Chinese, they shut out the whistles and steamrollered to victory. If they had lost it would have created a storm in archery that would have made the day's tempest seem like a soft shower of summer rain.

Talking of sweet rain, poor Williamson could not stop a few tears from falling as she spoke to us of her disappointment: sometimes when an athlete shuts things out for a time, a point of release is reached. She now dries herself for the individual competition starting tomorrow .

"I am really disappointed," said Williamson, an individual bronze medalist in Athens four years ago. "I feel basically that I let the other two down, that I should have pulled my weight more and I didn't.

"It's really frustrating and disappointing when you are that close to a medal that you are almost touching it. Four years is a long time to wait to try again."

Burgess, from Stockport, said: "The weather didn't help. When we had the break we got cold, although we have to accept the French had the same conditions to deal with. We put in so much hard work together over the last two or three years and it just didn't go to plan."