ELLISON and MOSPINEK top the Recurve Qualifications

 Individual - Recurve Men With variable winds and cool temperatures, it was not easy to be consistent in the morning. For the men, the conditions proved slightly more challenging as the day went on. The initial leader, Baljinima TSYREMPILOV (RUS) finished the FITA Round at tenth place. “We had a long winter in Russia and also had a hard training camp just before coming here. So I am not ready and not fresh enough to shoot well the whole day for the moment,” he said.   Mangal Singh CHAMPIA (IND) shared the lead with TSYREMPILOV at 90 metres with 325 points. The Indian held on to the lead until midday, although he only ranked 12th at the 70-metre distance with 334 points. However, two relatively poor performances on the shorter distances put him on sixth place to finish the qualifications.   Marco GALIAZZO (ITA) photo took the opposite direction. He found himself in an unusual 25th place after the shots at 90 metres. He recovered to rank a strong second at 70m, fifth at 50m and second at 30m to finish the day with 1331 points at fourth place overall.   Jayanta TALUKDAR (IND) had a similar performance—a slow start followed by increasingly strong performances at the closer distances. He was only 13th at 90m but he topped the field at 70m with 344 points and surged back to second place overall. He kept the second place at the end with 1336 points.   A more consistent archer was Brady ELLISON (USA). ELLISON ranked third at 90m with 321 points. He was not so good at 70m—eighth with 335 points—but he finished with strong performances at 50m and 30m. He respectively earned 333 and 353 points for a total of 1342 and the top place overall.  Individual - Recurve Women Unlike the seesawing men, Justyna MOSPINEK (POL) photo did not give any chance to her pursuers, ranking first at 70m and 60m (the long distances for women). She scored 335 and 343 points for a total of 678 points. She finished the day with a dominant 1348 points and a 4-point lead. She said: “It is a good day but a FITA Round is always demanding physically. Now I just would like to go to the hotel and rest. The 30-metre distance is not my favourite; I never ranked very high on this one. Overall, I feel quite good at this stage of the season compared to previous years. My life is very well balanced.”   Winner in Santo Domingo last month and multiple world champion Natalia VALEEVA (ITA) did not start well at 70m. She only managed to rank at seventh place with 327 points. She raised her level significantly later on with 339, 325 and 353 points, and threatened to close several times, but in the end she could not catch up with MOSPINEK.   Viktoriya KOVAL (UKR) was consistent throughout the day. She respectively ranked 10th, third, sixth and sixth at the four distances. She finished at third place with 1325 points.   ZHAO Ling (CHN) was second at 70m but she could not keep it up at the other distances. She finished fourth with 1324 points, ahead of Yulia LOBZHENIDZE (UKR), Pia Carmen LIONETTI (ITA) and Sophie DODEMONT (FRA).   Team - Recurve Men With a grand total of 3993 points, the Indian team of BANERJEE, CHAMPIA and TALUKDAR had eight points behind their score of Santo Domingo but they finished the qualifications with an impressive 56-point lead over their first pursuers, CHEN, XING and XUE from China. Russia was third with 3931 points, followed by Ukraine, Italy and Spain.   Team - Recurve Women With three competitors in the top 12—VALEEVA, LIONETTI and TONETTA—Italy took first place with 3975 points. Like India on the men’s side, Italy had a comfortable lead over the second seeded team China. CHEN, ZHAO and ZHU achieved 3938 points, just two points ahead of Ukraine. France was fourth, in front of Russia, Poland and Germany.   Team - Recurve Mixed Double In the new mixed team competition, Italy was first in the qualifications. VALEEVA and GALIAZZO earned 2675 points and led ahead of China (CHEN and ZHAO), Poland (MOSPINEK and DOBROWOLSKI) and Ukraine (KOVAL and RUBAN). Hence, the two latest Olympic champions, GALIAZZO (Athens 2004) and RUBAN (Beijing 2008), would meet in the semifinal!   Didier MIEVILLE FITA Communication