21 August 2010 - Ibrahim SABRY clinches Egypt’s first gold in archery upset

Ibrahim SABRY clinches Egypt’s first gold in archery upset  Singapore – 21 August 2010   Ibrahim SABRY won Egypt's first gold medal at the Youth Olympic Games on Saturday, clinching victory over top-ranked Rick van den OEVER (NED) with a brilliant crunch shot in the boys' archery decider at Kallang Field. FITA Secretary General congratulates Egypt and the Singapore Organizing Committee.  In the last match of the archery competition, the junior men gold final, SABRY lead by four points to nil after winning the first two sets. Van den OEVER put on the pressure in the third set with 27 from his three arrows, leaving SABRY, who had scored 18 with his first two, needing a 10 with the third to secure a straight sets victory.   SABRY, who also knew that anything less would keep the match alive and give his formidable opponent a big psychological boost, nailed the perfect 10 for a six points to nil win and fell to his knees with relief.   SABRY, who was only 10th after the ranking round, also beat second-ranked PARK Min Beom (KOR) on the way to victory.   In the bronze medal match, Bolot TSYBZHITOV (RUS) beat Gregor RAJH (SLO) by six points to nil.   The FITA Secretary General Tom DIELEN said: “We concluded the archery competition today with an historic gold medal for Egypt. This means a first ever medal for Africa in archery at the Olympic Games. This also shows that the development work done in Egypt with the FITA International Training Center in Cairo, supported by the International Olympic Committee, has delivered a huge success.”   “We are thrilled with three continents winning medals, while two other continents came close as Mexico placed an athlete at 4th place and Australia was in the top 8. We would like to thank the entire Organizing Committee of the Singapore 2010 Youth Olympic Games, and in particular all the people working in the archery venue, as well as the entire IOC team for their support in making the archery competition a wonderful one.”   YONS ap/kt/gr Edited by World Archery Communication