A "Robin Hood" for the lady of the day JUNG Dasomi (KOR)

  The Korean archers already proved to be on top form winning both women and men's qualifications. Unquestionably the athlete of the day was the recurve women’s No. 1 qualifier JUNG Dasomi (KOR) who held the top place for the whole day. She ended in grand fashion with a "Robin Hood" in the X zone on the very last end!  Recurve Men After the first distance of 90 metres the 2009 team world champion OH Jin Hyek (KOR) was leading the recurve men's qualification with 322 points. He was two points ahead of Romain GIROUILLE (FRA). Three archers followed with 319 points: IM Dong-Hyun (KOR), Jayanta TALUKDAR (IND) and Jean-Claude VALLADONT (FRA). At 6th place was Laurence GODFREY (GBR) with 318.   OH again topped qualifications at the second distance. He scored 341 at 70m and kept the lead half-way through with a total of 663. His fellow countryman IM came up from 3rd to 2nd place shooting the second best score at 70m (341/657). The best leap forward was for Juan Rene SERRANO (MEX) photo who came from 9th to 3rd place after shooting the third best score of the distance (337/652). GIROUILLE lost three places with only the 14th score at the second distance, ranking 5th at the half-way mark (320/651). The 2010 World Cup Final winner Brady ELLISON (USA) came 8th after 72 arrows with 645 points.   The Frenchman GIROUILLE recovered at 50m, shooting the best score of the distance with 344 points. He came up to 2nd place with a 995 provisional total, just behind the Korean OH who remained 1st though shooting the 11th score at the third distance of the day (339/1002). The second best performance at 50m was for Spain's Andres GOMEZ. Adding 342 points to reach 971, GOMEZ came up from 24th to 17th place. Another rise was for Rahul BANERJEE (IND) who shot the third best score at 50m to go from 10th to 8th rank (341/985).   The Koreans ranked their three recurve male competitors in the top 5, with OH winning the qualification round with 1359 points in front of his teammate IM, 2nd with 1352. KIM Woojin finished 5th with 1342. In-between the Briton GODFREY (1346) and the Frenchman GIROUILLE (1345) have done well ranking 3rd and 4th, respectively. ELLISON (USA), SERRANO (MEX) and VALLADONT (FRA) took 6th, 7th and 8th places, meaning they are also directly qualified for the 1/16 matches. Indeed according to the new rules the top 8 archers from qualification are exempt from shooting the first two elimination rounds. The last qualifying place (104th) for the elimination matches was for Romania's Alexandru BODNAR with 1213 points.  Recurve Women On the women's side a new Korean face, JUNG Dasomi photo, was in the lead after the first 36 arrows shot at 70 metres with 335 points. Her teammates KI Bo Bae, winner of the World University Universiade, World Cup Stage 4 and Asian Games in 2010, and HAN Gyeonghee were 2nd and 4th with scores of 332 and 330 respectively. The experienced Italian Natalia VALEEVA had slipped between at 3rd place with 330. Alejandra VALENCIA (MEX) and Karina WINTER (GER) followed with intermediate scores of 327 and 325.   After the first two distances the three Koreans were in the lead at the first three places with JUNG (676), KI (671) and HAN (666). VALEEVA moved back one rank to 4th with 664 points. After being 5th at 70m the 17-year-old VALENCIA only shot the 66th score at 60m to go down to 22nd place (313/640). On the contrary the 2010 European champion Natalya ERDYNIYEVA (RUS), who was 20th after the first distance, scored the 4th best 60m total to go up to 11th place (334/651).   No changes in the top 3 after three distances in recurve women with the Koreans keeping their ranks. Although shooting the 26th score at 50m (320), the Italian VALEEVA managed to stay at 4th place with 984, four points ahead of the German WINTER and the Russian Anna STEPANOVA, both with 980 at 5th and 6th places. The Italian Pia Carmen LIONETTI shot the 4th best score (328) of the third distance to improve her ranking from 35th to 18th with 968 points. Another important rise was for Spain's Gema BUITRON. With the 5th best score at 50m (328/960), she came up from 39th to 22nd.   Unquestionably the athlete of the day is the Korean JUNG Dasomi who never strayed from the No. 1 place all day long. Furthermore she finished the day with a "Robin Hood" in the X zone (meaning one of her arrows split a previous arrow already on the target) in the very last end! JUNG scored a total of 1374 ahead of her two teammates KI Bo Bae (1362) and HAN Gyeonghee (1349). They left only pieces to the other lady contenders… VALEEVA (ITA) finished 4th (1335), KUMARI (IND) 5th (1328), STEPANOVA (RUS) 6th (1327), WINTER (GER) 7th (1324) and ERDYNIYEVA (RUS) 8th (1323). The eight of them will go directly to the 1/16 eliminations.   Team Events Korea was unsurprisingly leading the men's team qualification with 951 after the first distance, but closely followed by India with 950. France was still in touch at 3rd place with 945. The hole was cut with the other teams already, Italy being 4th with 928 points.   After two distances out of four Korea left their pursuers far behind. With 1967 points, they were 36 points ahead of France, now 2nd with 1931. India could not go the distance losing one place to rank 3rd with 1925.   No changes in the recurve men's team qualifications with Korea (2984), France (2951) and India (2929) staying at the top three places. Italy and USA are still on track to claim the 3rd place, being both only four points behind Italy with 2925 points.   Behind Korea (4054 points), France placed 2nd with 3999 and USA 3rd with 3988. In the team event, the top 16 teams qualified for the 1/8 round. The last qualified team in recurve men was Poland with 3863 points.   With three archers in the women's individual top 4 after the first distance, the Korean ladies already owned a comfortable lead with 996 points, 28 points ahead of Italy (978). Great Britain was 3rd with 961. India (955), Ukraine (954) and Russia (953) followed very closely to one another.   As the three Koreans took over the individual top 3 places, they of course also led the team qualification ranking. With 2013 points the Korean ladies were already 43 points ahead of Italy, 2nd with a 1970 score. Great Britain lost the 3rd place going down to 6th with 1919. It was Russia leaping up to top 3 (1946).   With Korea easily keeping the lead with a 108-point (!) advantage (3026 points), the fight was taking place for the following places. Russia (2918) took over Italy (2915) for the 2nd place after the third distance, while India remained 4th (2915) and Germany 5th (2903).   The untouchable Koreans (4085 points) finished way ahead of their runner-up India (3961) who came up from 4th to 2nd place. Russia finished 3rd just one point behind (3960), while Italy slipped back to 4th place (3955). The 16th ranked and last qualified country was USA (3816).   In the mixed team qualification the Korean double JUNG Dasomi and OH Jin Hyek were in the lead with 657 points after the first quarter of qualification. Four teams were tied with the same score of 642: Alejandra VALENCIA/Juan Rene SERRANO (MEX), Natalia VALEEVA/Marco GALIAZZO (ITA), Laishram Bombayla DEVI/Jayanta TALUKDAR (IND) and Naomi FOLKARD/Laurence GODFREY (GBR).   At the half-way mark the Korean mixed team kept the lead with 1339, ahead of Italy (1309) and Great Britain (1306). India ranked 4th (1297) and Mexico 5th (1292) staying under threat from USA (1291), Russia (1287) and Ukraine (1285).   In the mixed team event also, the Koreans remained on their own at 1st place. JUNG and OH totalled 2017 points after three distances, far ahead of Great Britain (1965). The Britons surpassed Italy at 2nd place but with the same score. India remained 4th (1963). While Russia came from 7th to 5th place (1951), Mexico went down from 5th to 7th (1936).   The last distance did not bring any changes in the top places with Korea (2733), Italy (2666) and Great Britain (2665) finishing 1st, 2nd and 3rd. Denmark with Maja Buskbjerg JAGER and Johan WEISS finished 16th (2587) to clinch the very last qualifying spot in the mixed team event.   On 4 May in Porec, the second day of competition, it will be the compound division's turn to shoot qualification in the new form of the Compound 50-metre Round.   Stayed tuned at www.worldarchery.org!   World Archery Communication