World Games: at the half way mark of the field archery qualifications

The field recurve and barebow archery competition started today at the World Games. The event features twelve archers per division and per gender, and is decided over the course of three days. 
Today, under heavy clouds and in warm weather, the archers competed in the first day of the qualification round. All competitors shot 24 unmarked targets with distances between 5 and 60 metres. Each athlete was required to shoot three arrows per target. There are 6 rings on each target, with potential of scoring 6 to 1, or 0 for a miss.
Tomorrow, the athletes will complete the qualifications with another course of 24 targets—this time the distance for each target will be known beforehand. The top four archers from qualifications will advance to the individual semi-finals on 1 August.
In the recurve division, the most impressive archer of the day was Brady ELLISON (USA). The target archery ace, who is hoping to be field archery’s golden boy, climbed to the top spot on the last few arrows. Olympic team silver medallist in London, ELLISON has his sights set on a first international field archery medal. He averaged 5.361 points per arrow. His total of 386 was just enough to finish ahead of Alan WILLS (GBR), 2nd with 385 points. World field champion Frenchman Jean-Charles VALLADONT (photo), who had been in the lead for the major part of the day, dropped to 3rd with 380 points. 
“I am very happy because it’s the first time this year that I’ve competed in field archery,” said VALLADONT. “I had done all my set-ups at the French National Training Centre and did also train for 7 or 8 practice sessions during a week, but had not shot in competition. The unknown factors of the field are making things harder for the archers who are used to shooting target archery, but I managed well and have a reasonable margin over the 4th archer. 
“Now that we know the distances, I will have to shoot in the yellow, and it should be enough to finish in the top 4,” added the French archer. “If I had to mention the major difficulty of the course, I would say the birdies at 15 metres, because they are further out, small, and downhill.”
If the top three recurve male qualifiers seem to be already decided, the fourth qualifying spot to the semi-finals should be a closer competition. Four men are within 10 points of each other: Heribert DORNHOFER (AUT), 4th with 362 points, Juuso HUHTALA (FIN), 5th at 356, Jérôme BIDAULT (FRA), 6th one point behind, and Sven GIESA (GER), 7th with 353 points.
Competition is more open on the women’s side. World field champion German Elena RICHTER (photo) tops the ranking with an average of 5.111. With 368 points, she has a comfortable nine-point lead over Naomi FOLKARD (GBR), who was third at both the last World Games and the last World Field Championships. Third place went to Yuki HAYASHI (JPN). The recent team silver medallist from the Antalya World Cup shot 357 points today. Runner-up from the last World Games Jessica TOMASI (ITA) completed the top four with 351 points. She is just one point ahead of Lisa UNRUH, who was fourth at the last World Games. World Field Championships runner-up Zoe GOEBBELS (BEL) was only 7th today, but she is only 10 points from 4th place.
In the barebow division, the highest-scoring man was Olivier ROY (FRA). Fourth individually and impressive in the team competition in Val d’Isere, where he delivered the final 6 that gave his country the bronze, the French archer averaged 4.931 points for a total of 355 points today. 
ROY outscored Spaniard David GARCIA (photo), who shot 344 points. Third place goes to defending World Games champion Giuseppe SEIMANDI of Italy, who gathered the same total of points, but less 6s and 5s. World champion Sebastian JUANOLA (ESP), who is competing in his second major international event only, was only 7th. Fourth place went to Istvan KAKAS (HUN).
On the women’s side, defending World Games winner Eleonora STROBBE from Italy (main photo) had the highest scores from the start, and easily overtook the rest of the field. Her arrow average of 4.639 was almost 0.3 higher than anybody else’s. 
“It was a very technical course, very steep, and diagonal shots. Tomorrow the technical difficulties will be the same, but with targets stretched out further, which can be an additional difficulty in itself. The important thing is to finish in the top 4, so we’ll see.”
STROBBE, who settled for silver in Val d’Isere, scored 21 points higher than her closest competitor, France’s Chantal PORTE. Victoria WILLIAMS (GBR) came next with 305 points, just one point ahead of world champion Lina BJORKLUND (SWE). Despite a very good start, the archer from the host country Paula Andrea SERNA dropped to 9th place.
Stay tuned in our website for tomorrow’s second part of the qualifications.
World Archery Communication