Dos Santos’ 9th an Olympic-best for Brazil’s archers

Ane Marcelle Dos Santos was the only athlete from the host nation of the 2016 Olympics to make it to the finals days in the archery competition. The Brazilian archer lost to Naomi Folkard in the third round, 6-2, to finish ninth overall in the women’s event.

“I’m really proud of myself because I set an objective for myself which was to get to the 1/8 finals and I did that,” Ane said.

Ranked 64th in the world and seeded 26th in Rio after the ranking round, the 22-year-old beat Nagamine Saori and Alice Ingley in the early rounds of the competition. She couldn’t find a foothold in her match against Naomi, though, especially as the wind picked up.

Ane was smiling as she left the field.

“I was really happy because the crowd cheering helped a lot. They took away my nerves and I got very excited,” she explained.

Used to performing in the Sambodromo as a samba dancer, Ane Marcelle the archer produced the best performance of the Games for the host team in the familiar surroundings.

“The only real difference is the skill. You do samba with your feet, archery with your hands. The emotion and the excitement is the same,” she said.

Since matchplay was introduced in 1992, Brazilian archers competed at the Games in 1992, 2008 and 2012. None had ever made it past the first round – Ane did, and is now the most successful Brazilian Olympic archer in history.

The women’s individual finals take place on 11 August at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.