The Chinese Taipei junior women were 4-0 down to Korea’s recurve squad when their drive kicked in.
“I wanted to beat Korea,” said Chang Hsin Yi, determined.
The girls did a good job – winning the back two sets to bring the match back to a draw and forcing a tiebreaker.
“We tied the match and all shot good shoot-off arrows,” explained Wu Chia Hung. “But they shot and X and our best arrow was just a 10.”
Out by a measurement of a matter of millimetres.
Into a bronze final against Poland and the Chinese Taipei team outclassed their European opponents. The set scores were not as high as previous phases, as they won the first with just 49 points, but the result was clean: 6-0 in favour of Hsin Yi, Chia Hung and Peng Chia Mao.
Chinese Taipei’s cadet’s bronze final performance was a near copy.
The girls did drop their third set to Italy, when the Italians posted a strong 58-point set, but secured bronze in the fourth by two points. Final score: 6-2.
Chang Hsin Yu said she and her teammates felt relaxed.
“We concentrated more on our shots and movements, and that’s how we beat them,” she explained.
Marcus D’Almeida’s highly-touted Brazil collected its first medal of the tournament.
“This is a bronze with the flavour of a gold,” said Marcus in a poetic explanation of what it felt to secure a podium with two teammates from his club in Brazil.
“We have such good team spirit and train together all the time,” he explained.
The Brazilians lost to Korea – 5-1 – in the semifinals. Jhonata Lopes and Marcelo Da Silva said they were happy in the way they bounced back from the loss.
“We stayed strong, had a clear goal,” said Marcelo.
France’s junior men seemed to run out of steam after taking Korea to a shoot-off in the semifinals. Their bronze final against Japan was short and sweet – for the Asian nation.
Japan won in straight sets – continuing a run of nine sets in the competition in which the team scored 55 or 56 points for six arrows. Impressive!
