Next to the image of archer Ren Hayakawa under the 'athletes' section on the official Web site of the London Olympics is the Japanese flag. But the birthplace of the 24-year-old is listed as Anyang in South Korea.

Hayakawa, born Um Hye-ryeon in the Gyeonggi Province town south of Seoul, became a Japanese citizen in 2007. There have been athletes from around the world who acquire foreign passports to avoid stiff domestic competition for national team berths and have a better shot at going to Olympics. But Hayakawa insisted representing her adopted home in archery was never her plan when she left South Korea.

"I didn't become a Japanese citizen just so I could be on the national archery team," she said. "My sister told me to give it a try for the Olympics and I just went to the team trials."

Hayakawa was a good archer in South Korea and performed on a competitive high school team and later an industrial squad. But sometimes being good isn't nearly enough in a country that has dominated archery internationally for decades. Athletes and coaches alike have said making the South Korean national team, male or female, is just as difficult as winning an Olympic medal. And Hayakawa never made the South Korean national team.

In South Korea, Hayakawa used to compete with Ki Bo-bae, the ace of this year's Olympic female team. Ren's older sister, Nami, is also an archer who represented Japan at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Nami is friends with another member of the South Korean female team in London, Choi Hyun-joo.

The younger Hayakawa said she couldn't afford tuition fees in South Korea and went to Japan for the sole purpose of entering college there on an archery scholarship. Hayakawa admitted her performances at the Japanese national team trials last year, which earned her a spot on the Olympic team, exceeded her own expectations.

In London, Hayakawa faces an even more difficult challenge. At the Olympic Games, South Korean women have won the last six team events and six of the last seven individual titles. No Japanese woman has won an Olympic archery medal.

But away from the field, South Korean archers and coaches have interacted with the naturalized Japanese with the same kind of courtesy and friendliness reserved for their own teammates. Still, Hayakawa said she doesn't want to get caught up in her ties with South Korea and some of the country's archers.

"People will bring that up and I am aware of that," she said.

"But I am not necessarily trying to take down the country of my birth. If I keep worrying about it, then I'd be doing a disservice to the Japanese team that selected me for the Olympics."

Hayakawa said she has a straightforward, if abstract, goal for herself in London.

"I don't know what specific things I'd like to achieve at the Olympics," she said. "I want to give everything I have so that after it's all over, I can look back on it and become satisfied with myself." (Yonhap News)