India’s Deepika Kumari, silver medallist at three Archery World Cup Finals – each from 2011 to 2013 – had a down year in 2014.
After making her way through the Antalya brackets, she looked back. She looked back to her winning ways in the Antalya bronze final.
Both archers took some time to get used to the challenging wind, with Chang Hye Jin dropping a sub-par 25-point first set and KUMARI just a point more.
The second was better for Deepika – 29 – while Hye Jin was still floundering.
“It’s never easy as the Korean girls always shoot well,” said Kumari after the match. That was clear enough when, as the match looked all but done, Chang found the middle and stole the third.
In the end, though, the Korean was just putting too many into the nine-ring. She only found one 10 all match.
Kumari posted 28 points for her last three arrows, taking the last set by a point and her second Archery World Cup bronze in three stages dating back to last season. She had the same medal in Wroclaw at the last event on the 2014 circuit.
“I felt nervous before the match,” admitted Deepika. “But on the shooting line I felt good.”
“My heartbeat rate went down and I managed to shoot well.”
That’s the Deepika we’re used to.
Brady Ellison and Collin Klimitchek faced off in the recurve men’s bronze medal match. The pair had shot together as part of the USA squad that lost out on team bronze that morning in Antalya.
It was a case of veteran versus up-and-coming: Ellison has three World Cup Final Champion titles in his cabinet, Klimitchek three big international tournaments of experience.
“I’m really excited,” said Collin of even making the finals. “I was hoping for this but wasn’t expecting it. I just came here to shoot the best I could.”
Ellison beat current Olympic Champion OH Jin Hyek 7-1 in the quarterfinals and it was Ellison who struck first in the bronze medal match.
Taking advantage of an early eight from his teammate-and-opponent, Brady went 2-0 up.
But that’s as far as he’d get.
Collin shot three straight great sets: 28-30-29, all a single point more than Brady could manage at the target. Final score: 6-2 to the newbie.
The last word from Klimitchek: “It was a great match and I’m just looking forward to see what the rest of the year holds. We have a great team.”
