Chirault, van der Winkel match career bests, top qualifying at GT Open

Thomas Chirault and Laura van der Winkel shot 596 and 587 points, respectively, to top recurve qualifying at the GT Open, the first elite points event of the 2023 Indoor Archery World Series. Both scores match their career highs.

Tanja Gellenthien pipped world number one Ella Gibson to the top of the compound women’s leaderboard, 595 to 594 points, and there was a three-way tie in the compound men over the first 60 arrows of the event.

Mike Schloesser, Nico Girard and Braden Gellenthien all dropped three of 600 possible points.

“Great first day at the GT Open,” said Gellenthien on his social media profile, who was ultimately assigned the number three seed after a coin flip. He joked: “Does anyone have any advice on how to get better at these… coin flip things?”

The top 32 qualifiers in each category advanced to the head-to-head brackets.

Cuts sat at 571 points for recurve men, 477 for recurve women, 580 for compound men and 561 for compound women.

The first phase of matchplay ran this evening.

Five compound archers – Mathias Fullerton, Quinten van Looy, Nico Girard, Tanja Gellenthien and Ella Gibson – shot perfect 150s during the first pass.

There were two significant upsets: recent Hyundai Archery World Cup Final qualifier JP Boulch being dropped by Jay Tjin-A-Djie, and Erik Rowbotham beating recurve men’s number five seed Kaj Sjoberg in a tiebreak.

Competition at this first elite event of the 2023 Indoor Archery World Series concludes on Sunday in Strassen, Luxembourg.