Young German KAHLLUND poised to continue nation’s successful World Cup run

Florian KAHLLUND started the ranking round with a 60. It caught everyone’s attention – since the newly 21-year-old has been overshadowed by the recent medal haul of Germany’s recurve women.

Elena RICHTER won this year’s first World Cup stage in Shanghai and Lisa UNRUH got silver at Medellin. The women’s team had Medellin gold, too.

So that KAHLLUND quietly made the last 16 in Shanghai slipped under the radar. The relatively inexperienced athlete also made the last 16 at the Wuxi 2013 World Archery Youth Championships – but apart from that, doesn’t have much of a record to go by.

His number five seed here in Antalya changes that. “Shooting with a Korean on my target, it made me up my level a little bit,” he said.

“I’ve been getting stronger mentally over the last few months,” Florian explained. “I know I can shoot those scores in training, but until now I haven't been able to do them in competition.”

“All this season, the competition scores have been going up and up.”

The improvement has come due to nothing but hard work. Even though most of Germany is a little distracted with the upcoming FIFA World Cup – in which the nation is something of a favourite – when asked if he was interested in any other sport, Florian simply responded: “No.”

Germany’s recurve women’s team, UNRUH, RICHTER and – the team’s highest-finishing individual lady – Karina WINTER are seeded third for the brackets, just a few points above Mexico.

See results from the third 2014 Archery World Cup stage in Antalya, which runs from 11-15 June. Check event news, and visit World Archery’s Facebook page and @worldarchery on Twitter for coverage.