Preview: Indoor Archery World Series continues in Luxembourg at GT Open

The points will be hard to come by in Luxembourg.

More than 360 archers are set to shoot at this weekend’s GT Open, the second event of the 2020 Indoor Archery World Series.

Among the names on the – frankly, stacked – entry list are Stephan Hansen, Marcella Tonioli, Braden Gellenthien and Gaby Bayardo.

Oh, and while defending Olympic Champion Chang Hye Jin might have missed out on a spot on the Korean team next year, she’s still travelling internationally with her LH pro squad.

Chang is joined by Kim Young Kyeong and Wi Nayeon in Luxembourg.

At the first event on the Indoor Archery World Series calendar – the Macau Open – Mike Schloesser shot a perfect ranking round and four perfect matches, before losing the final, 148-147.

Schloesser, the indoor world record holder, was the first to score 600 indoors. Others have followed.

None have delivered a completely perfect tournament. Surely that’s coming?

This event in Luxembourg was something of a coming-out party for young Casey Kaufhold. She set a cadet world record and took the competition title – a precursor to more honours as part of Team USA during the course of 2019.

Elite ranking points won at the GT Open count towards qualification to the Indoor World Series Final. With the talent on the line at Strassen, those points will be hard-won.

Event details

• Event: GT Open
• Venue: Guillaume Tell Archery Club, Strassen, Luxembourg
• Dates: 22-24 November 2019
• Numbers: 369 in championship categories (106 recurve men, 66 recurve women, 135 compound men, 61 compound women)
• Points: 250 (top 16 score)
• Format: 60-arrow 18-metre ranking round followed by matchplay bracket

Coverage

News and pictures on www.worldarchery.sport and across World Archery’s social networks over the weekend. 

Live stream on World Archery’s YouTube channel, Facebook page and Twitter feed starting at 15h00 CET on Sunday 24 November.

Notes

None of the winners of the first circuit event in Macau will be in Luxembourg. We’ll have two-way ties in all competition categories in the ranking.

Reigning Pan American Games Champion Roberto Hernandez has only ever shot one indoor series event before – the Vegas Shoot. (And that’s not your usual indoor format.) Wild card.

Luxembourg is a small country, bordered by Belgium, Germany and France. There are 42 Belgian archers competing at this GT Open, 54 Germans and 117 from France.

Shibuya and Beiter have now entered recurve teams into the Indoor Archery World series – bringing the number to at least four recurve and three compound. Entries are being accepted all the way through to Nimes. With the points on offer at the last tournaments, it’s still all to play for.

Schedule

Friday 22 November: Qualification (two sessions).

Saturday 23 November: Qualification (two sessions) and early eliminations.

Sunday 24 November: Second chance tournament, eliminations and finals. Medal matches start at 15h00 CET (local).

One to watch

British archery had been devoid of serious international medals for quite some time until 2019.

The Brits hadn’t won a gold on the Hyundai Archery World Cup circuit in seven years until Ella Gibson and mixed team partner James Mason delivered at the Berlin stop this year.

Gibson, at just 19 years of age, hasn’t had any results indoors yet. But with the compound women‘s category poised to receive its next wave of contenders, Gibson is right on track to join the podium skirmish.

The second event of the 2020 Indoor Archery World Series is the GT Open on Friday 22 to Sunday 24 November 2019.