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The recurve men’s qualifications took place in the form of a 144-arrow round: 36 arrows shot on four distances, 90 metres, 70 metres, 50 metres and 30 metres.
As they did at the last World Cup event, the Korean men ruled the individual rankings, taking the first three spots. Olympic champion and recent World Cup Final winner OH Jin Hyek (main photo) ploughed his way to first place – with scores of 322 (7th), 340 (4th), 339 (1st) and 356 (1st) – respectively 5 and 9 points ahead of teammates LEE Seungyun and IM Dong Hyun.
OH’s 16 match victories against only 2 losses, and average score of 9.402 per arrow, over the 2013 season make him the favourite to win the World Championships, the only major individual title missing in his track record. “After winning the Olympics, I made myself keep winning. I am not a one-time winner,” he announced. OH came 4th at the 2009 World Championships, and 3rd in 2011.
Even though Korean archers took victory over the four distances, the top scorer at 70m – distance of the upcoming elimination rounds – was Mauro NESPOLI (ITA). His weak shooting and first-round loss at the recent World Cup Final made NESPOLI feel “very angry” and he trained hard the whole week in order to “seize the occasion to change those results”. The Olympic team champion ranked 5th overall (1340 points).
Jean-Charles VALLADONT (photo), left out of the French Olympic team last year, shot one more point than NESPOLI overall, to place as the top archer behind the Koreans (4th). He was spectacular at 90m with the 3rd score (326).
Olympic bronze medallist DAI Xiaoxiang (CHN), runner-up at the World Cup Final, also had his best performance at 90m (asVALLADONT’s 326) which contributed to his total of 1336, the 6th best of the day.
Seeds 6-9 were decided in shoot-off at 30m between three young but experienced archers who tied at 1335 points: Brady ELLISON (USA), who shot well at 70m (340 points, 3rd score) but admittedly hardly ever practices at 90m; Gaël PREVOST (FRA), who took Olympic champion OH all the way to a shoot-off last week in Paris and recorded today’s top score at 90m (328); and Olympian Taylor WORTH (AUS). 
WORTH (photo) and PREVOST claimed the two spots in the top 8, leaving ELLISON in 9th. “I really like Antalya, I always come here and have good performances,” said WORTH, who is returning to the region of Turkey in which he was part of the winning team at the Junior World Championships in 2008, and shot his competition best today.
Diversity characterised the men’s top 10, with individuals from four continents and seven countries: Australia, China, France, Italy, Korea, Netherlands and the United States. On the African side, the top scorer was Ivory Coast Olympian René KOUASSI.
Reigning world champion Korea faced no real threat in the team ranking, clear favourites from the start and emerging as the only team to pass the 4000-point barrier (4057). The team from India made of KAPIL, Tarundeep RAI, and Jayanta TALUKDAR finished 2nd (3987). With 3967 points for 3rd place, France showed potential to match the silver medals they won at the last two World Championships. Ten points separated France and Mexico, 4th at the London Olympic Games, and 4th today ahead of the Netherlands. China, 3rd after the long distances, dropped to 6th. Great Britain caught the 16th and final spot to advance to the elimination rounds, after a recovery that saw them climb five places in the afternoon session.
Today was the last time that the FITA Round will be shot at the World Championships, since the decision by Congress last weekend to replace it with a 70-metre qualification event.
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