24 August 2007 - Beijing Test Event: Most of the favourites prevail, except the Olympic Champion!

Most of the favourites prevail in Men’s 1/16 eliminations, except the Olympic Champion! Beijing - 24 August 2007   Almost all the higher ranked archers from Monday’s Ranking Round confirmed their status and reached the 1/18 eliminations. JIANG L. (CHN) and J. PROC (POL) were the only two real surprises. The Pole beat the experienced archer M. PETERSSON (SWE). The Olympic Champion M. GALLIAZO (ITA) and team-mate M. FRANGILLI also went down.   The Recurve Men Individual competitors took the Court A and B in the Olympic stadium and they played their 1/32 and 1/16 eliminations matches. The archers shoot four ends of three arrows. They alternate to shoot each arrow and have 30 seconds each time.      Marco GALIAZZO (ITA)Unlike yesterday in the women’s first two elimination rounds, only two of the archers in the morning session were granted BYE’s into the 1/16 round and they were the Koreans, LEE Chang Hwan and KIM Yeon Chul. Both then cruised through into the 1/8 elimination round which will be played on Sunday 26 August. KIM beat Viktor RUBAN (UKR) 112-108, and LEE faced Richard JOHNSON (USA), winning the last match of the morning session 113-108.   Rafal DOBROWOLSKI (POL) will have the unenviable task of meeting LEE in the 1/8 round on Sunday after defeating Florian FLOTO (GER) in the first round. He then had the Archery World Cup Stage 2 winner, Italian Michele FRANGILLI to compete with, but managed to take the advantage in the high scoring match, successfully beating FRANGILLI 115-111.   Another interesting journey through to Sunday was made by Chinese archer JIANG Lin. MORIYA Ryuichi (JPN), Madrid World Championships silver medallist was his opponent in the first round. It was a close match, but JIANG managed to hold on and win 106-105. To the delight of the Chinese spectators JIANG and world no.4 rank Juan Rene SERRANO (MEX) produced an exciting performance in the 1/16 round, taking the match to two tie breaks.   The two archers were hanging on by the skin of their teeth, both shooting 8 on their first arrow, but JIANG clinched the match shooting a 10 on his second arrow to SERRANO’s 9.   Japanese archer Takaharu FURUKAWA also made his way through to the 1/8 round with two high scoring matches, firstly eliminating Konstantin SOLODOVNIKOV (KAZ) with an impressive 116-92 and then with another clear score margin of 113-98 against Swede Lars EGGESTIG.   The man who won the bronze medal at the 1992 Olympic Games when he was just 18 years old, the evergreen but going grey Simon TERRY (GBR) beat another experienced archer, Vic WUNDERLE, 111-109 to advance to the 1/8 eliminations as well.   Jens PIEPER (GER) beat the bronze medallist of the recent World Championships, Al WILLS (GBR), in the first round, with a high score of 112-109. However, the German could not keep up his pace, losing to the new World Champion, IM Dong Hyun (KOR), 107-110.   The Korean will play the current Junior World Champion, Romain GIROUILLE (FRA), in the 1/8 eliminations on Sunday morning. The French was impressive today scoring 114 points to defeat Daniel PAVLOV (BUL) in the first round and 115 to beat local favourite XUE Hai Feng (CHN) in his 1/16 match. The Chinese started well with 29 points in the first end, but GIROUILLE answered with a perfect 30 and followed through with a 29. Too much for XUE who shot a 7 with his fourth arrow and trailed 59-55 at the end of the second end! The gap did not change much after and the match ended at the final score 115-110.   Michael NARAY and Tim CUDDIHY (AUS)    The no 1 in the world Baljinima TSYREMPILOV (RUS) did not shake in his match versus the Indoor specialist Markiyan IVASHKO (UKR). Tsyrempilov prevailed 112-107 and will meet the young talent Brady ELLISON (USA) in the 1/8 of final. The American had a difficult first round match against LIU Ming-Huang that ended at 111 apiece. The sudden-death shoot-off was decisive for ELLISON, as he scored 10 to LIU’s 9. Then, ELLISON raised his level a notch to beat the Canadian Jay LYON, 113-110.   The next 1/8 of final will see two archers from Chinese Taipei competing. Scoring high consistently, WANG Cheng Pang beat Crispin DUENAS (CAN), 112-108, and Ryota AMANO (JPN), 112-110. KUO Cheng Wei had a difficult task in meeting Olympic Champion Marco GALIAZZO in the second round but he prevailed 111-109. KUO and WANG already met in the final of the World Cup Stage 1, early in the season.   Ilario di BUO finally gave the Italian side something to smile about, when he defeated Andrey ABRAMOV (RUS) in the second round. The archers went to a shoot-off and still tied the first arrow at 9. Then di BUO managed a 10, one point better than ABRAMOV’s 9.   The last matches of the day on Court A were an all-Australian affair. Michael NARAY defeated team-mate, Athens bronze medallist Tim CUDDIHY 101-91. He then met the no 1 seed and team-mate KIM Ha-Neul. The match was sumptuous! NARAY started with 29, compared to KIM’s 28. The latter responded with a 10-10-10, 9-10-10 to take the lead after three ends, 87-85. NARAY shot 9-10-10 with his last three arrows, but that wasn’t enough to catch KIM who kept a 1-point lead, 115-114! This 114 was the highest losing score of the day! KIM will meet di BUO in the 1/8 match on Sunday.   Tomorrow, the medals of the Recurve Women Individual will be awarded. The archers start at 10:30 am with the 1/8 eliminations.   It will be another day of emotions at the Beijing 2008 Archery Stadium.   Didier Miéville FITA Communication