25 September 2006 - Shanghai World Cup : All for 4 !

Shanghai World Cup : All for 4 ! Shanghai, 25 September 2006 Many of the 200 archers that came to the Stage 4 of the Meteksan Archery World Cup in Shanghai have one thing in common : this is their last chance to grab one of the 4 spots in the Grand Final in Merida (MEX) and a stack of the big prize money next month.   Photo © www.dutchtarget.com : Zhang Juan Juan (CHN) The Stage 4 of the Meteksan Archery World Cup will take place from September 27-30. The qualifications and eliminations will be held in the refurbished clay shooting range of the Shanghai Shooting and Archery Center. The finals will be organized on the beautiful central lawn of the Shanghai Minhang Sports Park and thousands of fans are expected to come and enjoy the matches.   As usual, the qualifications will take place on Day 1 (Wednesday) with a 70m round (72 arrows). Then a maximum of 64 archers per category is put into bracket like a tennis tournament for individual eliminations matches on Thursday. On Saturday, the bronze medal and gold medal matches will take place at the Minhang Sports Park. On Friday, the team event will take place. Let’s take a look at the favorites.   Recurve Men In each category, it will be a battle between about 10 archers for the 4 spots in the Grand Final in Merida. In Recurve Men, the golden Italian trio is here : Di Buo (current World Cup leader with 46 pts), Frangilli and Olympic Champion Galiazzo. They will face tough competition from the Indian Talukdar (2nd in World Cup with 38 pts) and the Swedish Petersson (3rd with 31 pts). The two Korean stars, Park Kyung Mo and Im Dong Hyun, will try to make a come back. Finally, the two Dutchmen Van Alten and Custers as well as the Chinese Xue Haifeng are still contenders.   Recurve Women With two wins in the previous World Cup stages in Antalya and San Salvador, the local hero Qian Jialing is the only archer that is sure to go to Merida. She leads the World Cup in her category with 62 pts. The Italian Tonetta has a small edge over the other competitors for the remaining three spots in the Final with 33 points in the ranking. However, it will be wide open with the other contenders : Zhang Juan Juan (CHN), Lionetti (ITA), Galinovskaya (RUS), Williamson (GBR), Setir and Nasaridze (TUR) as well as two of the Korean dream team : Park Sung Hyun and Lee Tuk Yung.   Compound Men This will be truly a wild(e) affair. The two American brothers Reo and Logan Wilde are among the favorites to go through. Reo leads the World Cup with 46 pts. However, everything is possible and the 4 semi-finalists here in Shanghai may be the 4 who will qualify for the Merida Final. All the best and mainly the best came to this last qualifying event and there will be no room for mistake, even in the 1st round of eliminations matches. The other contenders are : Elzinga and Custers (NED), Hofer (SUI), Genet (FRA), Jimenez (ESA), Ochoa (MEX), Dos Santos (BRA) and Cousins (USA).   Compound Women Three countries are dominating this category at the World Cup level and this is mainly a race of 5 archers for 4 spots. Who will be the one left over ?... The two Russians Kazantzeva (winner in Porec) and Goncharova (winner in Antalya and San Salvador) have an edge but can’t be certain to go through. The Americans Van Natta and Davis as well as the Mexican Almendra Ochoa have kept all their chances. Colin (USA), Bastos (MEX), Simpson (GBR) and Hansda (IND) are the outsiders.   Live results and reports will be on www.archeryworldcup.org   Didier Miéville FITA Communication