LONDON (Yonhap News) -- South Korean archers were off to a rousing start at the London Olympics Friday, as both men and women secured high seed positions in the ranking rounds held hours before the opening ceremony.

On a cloudy but calm day at the training range at Lord's Cricket Ground here in the host city of the 2012 Summer Games, Im Dong-hyun fired 699 to break his own 72-arrow record by three. He was followed by teammates Kim Bub-min at 698 and Oh Jin-hyek at 690. Their team total of 2,087 was also a world record score, and it gave them the bye to the quarterfinals in the team competition for Saturday.

Thanks to the 1-2-3 finish, the South Korean men will take on the bottom three archers in the opening round of the individual competition Monday, which will feature 64 archers in total.

Later Friday, Ki Bo-bae finished at the top of the women's round with 671. Her teammate Lee Sung-jin also shot 671, but Ki had the tiebreaker edge with 31 shots of perfect 10s, one more than Lee.

Tan Ya-Ting of Chinese Taipei also fired 671 but she put 28 arrows in the 10.

Choi Hyeon-ju, the third member of the Korean team, struggled to a 651 that placed her in 21st place. But the Korean trio still had the highest combined points by a team with 1,993, edging the U.S. team that put up 1,979. Chinese Taipei was third at 1,976.

Ki and Lee should have relatively easier paths in the individual bracket, while Choi could run into a high-ranked archer early in her tournament.

For the male archers, it was business as usual.

"We have the team event starting tomorrow, so I will keep doing my best," Im said, without commenting on his record, as he walked passed by a throng of journalists in the mixed zone.

Kim and Oh, however, declined to speak to the media, simply waving and smiling as they left the range.

Jang Young-sool, head coach of the archery team, refused to make a big deal out of the record-setting performance.

"This was only the preliminary round," he said. "We're supposed to have windy conditions tomorrow. We have to be prepared for that. The archers are in pretty good shape."

The men's individual gold is the only Olympic archery title that has eluded South Korea. The country has grabbed the last three men's team event and the last six women's team competition, plus six of the past seven women's individual events.

Britain's Larry Godfrey, considered the host country's best hope for an archery medal, ranked fourth at 680 points. Brady Ellison, the world's No. 1-ranked archer from the U.S., was 10th at 676.

In the combined scores, France was a distant second behind South Korea at 2,021 points. Gael Prevost had the top individual score for France at 679.

China and the U.S. were tied at 2,019 points, but China claimed third place because its archers combined for 100 shots of perfect 10, one more than Americans.

The top four countries have the byes to the final eight. In the quarters, South Korea will face the winner of the round-of-16 match between Britain and Ukraine.

The South Korean women had a much tighter race than their male compatriots. Khatuna Lorig of the U.S. was just two behind Ki, and just eight points separated the first-place Ki and the seventh-place Carina Christiansen of Denmark.

Jang, the head coach, said the women's team didn't put up the desired scores but he was happy with having the top two archers on his team.

"We have to look past this stage and get ready for the actual tournament," he said. "There's no guarantee the weather will hold up like it did today."

The female squad, as did the men's, earned the bye to Sunday's quarters in the team competition, where it will take on the winner of India-Denmark match in the round-of-16.