Now a member of the Italian senior recurve team, and one of the trio that qualified the defending Olympic Champions in the team event a full quota to Rio 2016, 19-year-old David Pasqualucci competed in the junior division at Ankara 2016.
He qualified top, with 593, and won two shoot-offs in a row to make a final against Dan Olaru.
Hailing from Moldova, Dan’s most recognisable past achievement was making the top 10 at the London 2012 Olympic Games as a heavy underdog and aged just 16.
In Ankara, it was Pasqualucci who shot tighter in the finals arena. He put just one of his arrows out of the 10-ring in the four set match.
Dan started with a 10 but then had a wayward arrow with his second shot of the match. “I was scared, so after the six I had to manage my nerves,” he explained.
David’s lone nine came in the second set, the only set the Italian athlete lost on the way to a 6-2 win.
“I’m happy not only for today but for this entire week. I won with the junior men’s team and now individually. It’s been great week,” said David!
The team title, contested just a few minutes before David’s individual match-up, saw the Italians – David with Yuri Belli and Dino Bizzotto – shoot a 58+ average and beat Turkey in three sets, keeping the hosts off the set scoresheet.
Italy’s recurve junior women’s team also took gold.
Tatiana Andreoli, Loredana Spera and Tanya Giaccheri picked up a second world indoor title in a row in a shoot-off with an all-new line-up from Chinese Taipei. Tatiana and Loredana were part of the squad that won the first crown in Nimes in 2014.
The match started in a tie, then Chinese Taipei jumped ahead by taking the second set. Italy levelled to 3-3, then the two teams both shot 57 in the final set, taking the match to four-all and the tiebreaker.
It was the right moment for Italy to shoot three perfect arrows.
“We had to keep our concentration and that’s what we did,” said Loredana. The Italian girls’ 30 beat Chinese Taipei’s three nines.
“This is very satisfying because at some point we thought it was not going to be possible,” added Nimes 2014 individual winner Tatiana, who also faced a Chinese Taipei opponent in the individual final in Ankara.
She was unable to muster the same arrow when that match went to a tiebreaker, shooting nine to Su Szu-Ping’s 10.
Chinese Taipei’s Chang Rong-Jia Chang and Slovenian Rok Bizjak won the recurve junior women’s and men’s bronze medals, respectively.
