4 May 2007 - Seven countries will shoot for gold tomorrow!

Seven countries will shoot for gold tomorrow! Varese - 4 May 2007   The team matches took place today all the way through the semi-finals. Only France earned two berths in gold finals. The other countries are: Great Britain, Australia, Poland, PR China, USA and Russia.   With heavy rain since the morning and the overall stormy conditions during the week, the field quickly looked like the nearby Lake Maggiore for the team event today. Mud, rain and cold: the archers could taste a bit of Dante’s “Inferno”, but they fought through to qualify for the bronze and the gold medal matches tomorrow. The teams shoot matches of 24 arrows (4 ends of 6 arrows) and have three members alternating.   Recurve Men It was truly a hell of a day for the number one seeded Italians. They barely survived during their first round match versus Luxembourg, gaining a one point advantage in the last end (207-206). However, they could not pass by the Dutch in the quarter-final, losing 201-210. The number two seed, Ukraine, didn’t do better. They lost versus the USA in the quarter-final 186-202.   Two countries took advantage of the situation and will meet in the final: Great Britain and Australia. Although they shot most of the day in polo-shirt despite the conditions, the Australians had a lot of success beating PR China, Germany, and the USA to reach the final. Great-Britain was even more impressive winning all their matches with an average of 20 pts margin!   Recurve Women There were not many surprises on the women side, but one match was truly spectacular. At the end Poland surprised Korea! Korea was leading by six points half-way (107-101). However the Koreans had trouble with the weather and didn’t have time to release their last arrow in the third end. The Polish took advantage of it to tie the score at 148-148 pts. In the last end, the Koreans started with a 10-9-9 but finished with an 8-8-7. The door was open for Poland who beneficiated from a liner 10 to win the match 200-199 pts.   In the lower part of the draw, number 11th seed, Belarus beat Ukraine (204-202) and France in another close game: 52-52 after 6 arrows, 104-103, 158-155 and 205-204 pts. However in the semi-final, China was too strong for Belarus (208-198).   Compound Men In the Team Compound Men category, the biggest surprise came from the Swiss archers, who first defeated the Dutch team 223-219, and continued to win over the Croatian guys in the quarter-finals 219-217. They were on their way to the gold medal match on Saturday, but one of the archers of the team shot an arrow on the Americans’ target, their opponents in the semi-final! What a pity for them, as they had the advantage over the very experimented US team. The Swiss team finally lost the match with a score of 210-226. Their efforts will be paid with the bronze medal match to be shot on Saturday.   The Iranian team also did very good by going up to the semi-final, beating first the local team (ITA) with a very large edge 226-207. Then, they met the British team in a very close match, but as the ends were passing the difference was bigger and they finally continued to the semi-final with a score of 227-221. The semi-final match was a bit more difficult than the previous ones, since they met the very fit French team. This one didn’t want to let it go, and the Iranian team weren’t able to continue on its path… France won the match 231-219 and will go for gold versus USA, while Iran will shoot for bronze against Switzerland.   Compound Women The quarter-finals of the Compound Women Team round gave no real surprise since all the highest ranked teams of the qualifications continued to the semi-finals without much pain. The semi-final matches were more interesting since the score difference was very low, only 2 or 3 pts to clinch the match. The first one, France vs. Italy was changing of leader in each end (53-53, 109-107, 162-163) and finally it is the French team, with the new World Record holder member Bouillot, who took over the local girls 220-217. The other semi-final was USA vs. Russian Federation. This was a less close, but still interesting match: the Russian archers led the match from the first to the last end, but the Americans tried hard to come back to the score. Unfortunately they fell short and stood behind by two points. They lost 217-219. gold medal will be awarded to the winner of the France vs. Russia, and bronze will be shot between Italian and American teams.   See you on Saturday !   Chantal Steiner / Didier Miéville FITA Communication