Dutch men beat Ukraine to secure title bout berth

Dutchmen Sjef van den Berg, Rick van den Ven and Steve Wijler will shoot for the recurve men’s team title against Taylor Worth, Ryan Tyack and Astin Darcy of Australia at the 2018 World Archery Indoor Championships on 18 February in Yankton, USA.

“I think we are all happy. We ranked first and that was a starting point. After that, we shot great in the quarters and in the semis. Hopefully we can keep it up until Sunday,” said Rick.

The Netherlands first beat France, 5-1, with a perfect pair of 60-point sets and a 58 against France’s 59, 57 and 58 – and then Ukraine, dropping only three points over four sets.

“We are really confident. We have Sjef, who’s in the individual gold medal match and shot a European record. I did really well and Rick is back on track, so we feel confident in our team,” said Wijler, who was recently announced as recurve archer and breakthrough athlete of 2017.

“I’m really happy with the team we have. I think if we just keep it together in the final we have a really good chance to getting the gold medal,” added Sjef.

Yankton is the Netherland’s first shot at an indoor world title. They will face seventh seed Australia who beat Slovenia, Japan and Russia in the semifinals, 5-1.

The Aussie men feature Taylor Worth and Ryan Tyack, Olympic team bronze medallists from Rio 2016, with world debutant Astin Darcy as the third.

“We are feeling pretty good about making the final. This is the first time we are shooting together as a team and we have only been working together for a couple of days, so I think we have done pretty well,” said Taylor.

Australia’s only recurve men’s team gold at the world indoors was back in 1999 in Havana, Cuba.

The recurve women’s team final will see Russia and Germany shooting for gold.

On the way to the gold final, Lisa Unruh, Elena Richter and Michelle Kroppen of Germany first beat France, 5-1, and then Japan, 5-3.

First-seeded Russia, featuring Sayana Tsyrempilova, Elena Osipova and Tuiana Dashidorzhieva, secured a bye until the semifinal with Ukraine, which went to a shoot-off.

Both teams scored a pairs of 10s and a nine, but Russia had an arrow closer to the centre of the target.

“It was a hard match and even a harder shoot-off, but our arrows were straight in the centre, theirs touched the line, so it was an easy call out there,” said Sayana.

The 2018 World Archery Indoor Championships takes place in Yankton, USA on 14-19 February.