11 August 2008 - Flash Quotes - Men's Team Semi-Finals and Finals

Flash Quotes - Men's Team Semi-Finals and Finals Beijing - 11 August 2008   Semi-Finals   Marco GALIAZZO (ITA)   On playing either Korea or China for the gold medal:   "For us it's fine. It doesn't matter who we play, Korea or China.''    Mauro NESPOLI (ITA)   On shooting a 10 on his last arrow:   "I had to shoot at least a nine to win. Because of the pressure, this arrow felt very heavy to shoot. My teammates reminded me that gold (nine and 10 in the target) is big, even if it's 70m away."   On who he prefers to play for the gold:   "I'd prefer China since Korea is the best in the world.''   Ilario DI BUO (ITA)   On making the medal round:   "Our medal will be the 500th medal for Italy in Olympic history. We hope it will be the most important one, but it doesn't matter the colour. We think this will give more visibility to archery in Italy."   On shooting two eights in the last end:   "Our team is really well balanced. Obviously, we're trying not to make bad arrows. But if it happens, like it did for me in the last end, I know my teammates can recover. It's the same for every one of us."    PARK Kyung-Mo (KOR)   On his position in Korea's shooting order:   "I got a little bit nervous when I had to shoot in the third position."   On needing to shoot an eight on the final arrow to beat China:   "If I said I had no pressure, it would be a lie."   On the match:   "Although our score was not so good, I never thought the Chinese would be our opponent in the semi-finals."   LEE Chang-Hwan (KOR)   On preparing for the gold medal match:   "I believe in our team members and I will do my best. I did my best out there to help our team. Our team's goal is a gold medal."   IM Dong-Hyun (KOR)   On shooting in front of a vocal Chinese crowd:   "I expected China's spectators to cheer loudly, but, in the end, it didn't affect me. Although we won by just two points, we're happy. It's a good feeling to advance to the Gold medal round."   ONS py/ct/mb/bc/ml/npb/mp/ss     Finals   JIANG Lin (CHN) - Bronze   On his match:   "I performed well today. I tried to be active when I needed to be active. And I kept thinking, 'I need to nail him.'"   On defeating Ukraine:   "The most important thing is cooperation of the whole team. You could see there were thousands of people sitting there cheering for us. It really encouraged us."   On Ukraine:   "There's no huge gap between the two teams, so we knew we could beat them, we had the confidence to win."   On losing to Korea in the semi-finals:   "I've got a little bit of regret because we thought we had a chance to get the Gold medal. But we welcome the Bronze medal."   On bronze:   "I'm excited and proud to put out (a bronze medal winning) performance in our homeland. It was touching to see so many (Chinese) patriots come out to watch the match. I'm a little bit regretful that we didn't grab the Gold. In the future we will make more efforts."   XUE Hai Feng (CHN) - Bronze   On his placement in the shooting order of the Chinese team:   "I am omniscient. I can shoot at any time in the order because I've been training for a really long time and have competed in many international archery competitions."   On how he feels about his team bronze medal:   "Today’s win will not be my best performance. I still have a chance (to win a medal in the men's individual on Friday)."   On having his mother in the stands to watch him take bronze:   "I'd like to express my grateful thanks to my mom."   On getting bronze:   "It was a must for us to win this match. It's a pity that we didn't make it to the final, but we brought the best out of ourselves in this match. We wanted to get into the top six and what we have now is definitely a breakthrough."   GUO Mei Zhen (CHN) - Coach   On improvements in Chinese Archery:   "The main reasons that contributed to the success are the efforts and hard work over the past four years. We have overcome a lot of difficulties to finally come to this place and it's excellent to lead these great archers and see them make the historic breakthrough."   Viktor RUBAN (UKR)   On how the Chinese crowd affected Ukraine's performance:   "The crowd didn't have any effect on me because during competition I don't care about anything."   On China compared to other opponents:   "I felt that the competition against China was more difficult. Their ability and skill is stronger than Chinese Taipei."   Marco GALIAZZO (ITA) - Silver    On getting Silver:   "We are satisfied with what we did, unfortunately we tried to get the gold, but we lost on the last arrow."   "We tried not to be too worried about the Koreans. In the end, we were just one step away from doing the great deal."   On being ranked No. 6 and not getting a bye on the first match:   "At the beginning of the Olympics we were thought to be one of the medal favourites, but we shot poorly in the Ranking Round. Today we demonstrated that we were one of the favourites."   Mauro NESPOLI (ITA) - Silver   On shooting a seven on his last arrow, which cost the Italians the gold medal:   "On this field it's really hard to shoot because I'm not used to so many spectators. An Olympic final is something you cannot imagine. In the sem-finals my last arrow was important to put us in the gold final, unfortunately in the gold medal match I couldn't do the same."   On Silver:   "It doesn't happen every day that you get to be in the Olympic Games. It's an unbelievable experience. I really shot the last arrow badly, but I still feel great satisfaction. For me, this is my first time at the Olympics. And I got a silver medal."   On Italian archery:   "For our federation it was for sure good. This is our fourth medal in four Olympic Games. I have to believe, getting a silver medal will end up being one of the best things I will have ever done for my sport in Italy."   PARK Kyung-Mo (KOR) - Gold   On the pressure of having to shoot an eight to win the match:   "As for the pressure we have, of course, it was very intense. But it's part of the game.   On the preparations Korea made to win gold:   "In Korea we set our practice venue up as close to the actual venue as we could. We even put people in the stands, but you don't have to prepare exactly for every shot. I know I can always shot an eight, nine, or 10, my colleagues can as well."    IM Dong-Hyun (KOR) - Gold   On how he felt about the venue and the spectators:   "I was very grateful that I could play a very good game in a very big venue. I think it was because so many Koreans showed up that we got this result."   On how the Korea beat Italy:   "I think any archer here can shoot 10, 10, 10, they (Italy) are that good so we fell back at the end, but we still knew we would pull through."   ONS py/ct/jf/jg/bc/ss/zl/jp/yd/rw/mo/mb/mp/adg