01 September 2006 - All favourite teams find their way to the semi-finals in Göteborg

All favourite teams find their way to the semi-finals

Göteborg – 01 September 2006

Friday morning at Göteborg the grey sky has not stopped the favourite teams from making their way to the semi-finals of the Field World Championships team event. In the women category France, Germany, Sweden and Austria have all won their respective quarter final over USA, Slovenia, Italy and Great Britain. On the men’s part, it is Sweden, USA, Germany and Italy who qualified over France, Great Britain, Slovenia and Netherlands.

The participants and organizers of the 20th Field Archery World Championships have been lucky so far with the weather and hope it will continue up to tomorrow’s last day (individual finals). Today, it is time for the teams to compete, in an event that brings one archer of each division (recurve, compound and barebow) together to represent their country. The team competition is shot in head-to-head matches, on 8 targets in quarter finals and 4 targets for the semi, bronze and gold finals.

In the women category three teams had quite an easy way to go through the first round. The Austrian ladies, led by Reingild Linhart in barebow, defeated the British by 106 to 102. Germany made great impression as well in their match against Slovenia (105-95).

Local stars Olofsson, Ericsson and Ahlund also proved too strong for their Italian opponents (102-96). In a very tight match, it is finally France who took the last qualifying place for the semi-finals, after beating USA by one little point only (96-95).

In the semi-finals this afternoon, the German lady will be facing their French neighbours, whereas Austria will certainly give a hard time to the local archers, the Swedish.

There was no great suspense in the men competition… although all eight teams all shot over 100 points! The four qualified teams just proved too strong for their respective opponents. The Swedish archers, shooting at home, would very much like to offer a first gold medal to their fans. Composed by Morgan Lundin, Göran Bjerendal and Mathias Larsson, Sweden defeated France on the score of 110 to 102.

In the second quarter-final, Great Britain and USA were facing each other in a 100% Anglo-Saxon match. It is the Americans who finally took the best of their skills (114-109). As in the women competition, the Slovenian male archers were competing to the Germans in their quarter-final, and as their female counterparts, they could not handle German power: 104-113.

Led by great Michele Frangilli, Italy has proved we should count with them in this event – there victory over the Netherlands (112-104) leaves no doubt as to their standing as one of the favourite team for the world title. But before shooting for gold, they will have to deal with the Germans in the next round. The second semi-final this afternoon will see Swedish and Americans facing each other in an exciting match.

Let’s join us here in Göteborg to live the very last days of this year’s Field World Championships!

Ludivine Maitre Wicki

FITA Communication