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Challenging marked course as 12 qualify for final fours at world field

05 octobre 2022

Yankton, South Dakota, USA

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Archers shoot downhill at the world field championships in 2022.

Twelve archers are through to the semifinals at the 2022 World Archery Field Championships after the second day of qualification, the marked distance day, in Yankton.

The three (of six in total) top seeds from the host country, the USA, are all past winners of the tournament, with Paige Pearce on track to defend the compound women’s title she won at the last edition of these championships held in 2018. Brady Ellison, who secured back-to-back world field titles in 2014 and 2016, comfortably topped the recurve men’s field.

Meanwhile, veteran international Dave Cousins, also a two-time world champion in the discipline (2002, 2010) as well as a former outdoor World Archery Champion, has a good chance to take his first individual medal in a decade.

“Very good course. I’m very happy to see the courses return to what I feel is the core of field archery values,” said Cousins, who’s accrued seven career individual podiums at the event. “Good slopes, long distances, challenging terrain, challenging footing. Absolutely perfect course layout put on by the organisers for a course of this level.”

His back-to-back 414-point days, for 828 total, put him top of a formidable compound men’s field in Yankton.

Only reigning World Archery Champion – and World Archery 3D Champion – Nico Wiener posted a better marked round today, beating Cousins by one, to jump into the second seed with 826 points and secure his place in the semifinals of these championships. Wiener won his outdoor world title in this city one year ago; his best finish at the world field is second, four years ago.

(Pearce had the third-best compound qualifying score over the last two days with 820.)

Cinzia Noziglia, Chiara Rebagliati and David Jackson completed the line-up of top qualifiers, while Patrick Huston, Aurelie Autret, Toja Ellison, Eric Esposito and Christine Gauthe also booked spots in the final four.

Under the current format, the top two qualifiers in each competition category advance directly to the semifinals of the championships. The next 20 seeds enter high-pressure shoot-up elimination pools to decide who fills the remaining two spots in each of the final fours.

Archers like defending recurve men’s world field champion Oonuki Wataru of Japan, who was 108 points off top qualifier Ellison’s pace with 657 and seeded just 18th, would need to win a ladder of matches and knock out multiple higher seeds, to make the latter stages of this tournament.

No such danger for the top performers over these first two days of competition, who already have a one-in-four shot at a title (and a three-in-four chance of making the podium).

Perhaps nobody’s shot is looking stronger than reigning World Games and World Archery 3D Champion Noziglia, who arrived in Yankton as the barebow women’s favourite and scored 48 points more than her nearest competitor, Gauthe, over the last two days of competition. She needs to win this event to complete an historic triple in 2022.

“Today wasn’t so amazing but I’m totally satisfied with the results until now,” said Cinzia. “I think the course today was more difficult than yesterday. Today was more difficult to walk, more difficult the position of the feet when shooting, everything.”

“Fifty points in qualification is not enough to have the medal. I try to maintain,” she added, looking towards the rest of the competition.

The top qualifiers won’t compete until late in the day on Thursday when the semifinals – with the survivors of the eliminations pools – are scheduled to decide the line-up for Sunday’s individual medal matches. Friday is team matchplay ahead of team finals on Saturday, when the first-ever world field titles will be awarded for mixed teams.