Marcos, Cagiran headline finals of world ranking event in Antalya

Turkish top seed Evren Cagiran and reigning European Champion Andrea Marcos headline the finals at the International Antalya Challenge, the first world ranking event since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Marcos upset home favourite Yesim Bostan in the quarters after a shoot-off.

“Shooting against Yesim is always super difficult. She is one of the best archers in the world. We reached a tiebreak, and I thought it was going to be close. But Yesim shot a miss,” Marcos said.

“I don’t know what happened. I think she wanted to come down, and the trigger activated. It’s a shame whenever something like that happens to an archer of her ability.”

Marcos shot a 10 in the tiebreak, earning her ticket into the next phase irrelevant of Bostan’s unfortunate mishap.

She went on to beat reigning World Archery Champion Natalia Avdeeva in the semis, 147-145, to set up a final against Russian archer Elizaveta Knyazeva, the second seed at this tournament.

Knyazeva is currently transitioning to the senior ranks.

“The truth is, when you’re at an international event, you never know what will happen,” said Marcos. “Fifteen arrows happens very fast. I hope I feel as good as I did shooting today. I hope I take the gold, but if not, then the Russian girl will deserve to win.”

Cagiran shot three consecutive matches of 148 points to go from the top seed to the final in the compound men’s competition.

His Turkish teammates, who also topped qualification, did not have such clean eliminations. Mete Gazoz lost a shoot-off to Federico Musolesi, while Yasemin Anagoz dropped to Musolesi’s Italian teammate Chiara Rebagliati, 6-4, both in the quarterfinals.

Surprise finalists Sandra Cebrian of Spain and Magdalena Smialkowska of Poland will contest the recurve women’s final in Antalya.

Twenty-one-year-old Alessandro Paoli will face Russian archer Artem Makhnenko, who shot a career-best qualification score of 685 points in Antalya, in the gold medal match of the recurve men’s event.

Finals schedule

The live stream of the gold medal matches at the 2020 International Antalya Challenge start at 1415 local time. Viewers in Turkey should watch via TRT.

• Compound women: Andrea Marcos, Spain v Elizaveta Knyazeva, Russia
• Compound men: Evren Cagiran, Turkey v Lukasz Przybylski, Poland
• Recurve women: Sandra Cebrian, Spain v Magdalena Smialkowska, Poland
• Recurve men: Alessandro Paoli, Italy v Artem Makhnenko, Russia

The 2020 Antalya International Challenge, archery’s first world ranking event since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, takes place on 2-4 October 2020.

Photos by Saygin Akinci. Quotes by Oyku Ergec.