Val D’Isere 2012 team gold medallist Bryony Pitman shot 664 points to sit on top of the recurve junior women after the unmarked and marked qualification courses at the 2016 World Archery Field Championships in Dublin, Ireland.
She came in 11 points ahead of the USA’s Miriam Trafford on 655, and 24 above Italy’s Chiara Rebagliati, third.
“I shot really well over the two days and shot a personal best overall for the combined round,” she said. “It’s just giving me a lot of confidence, especially with the marked distances, and going into the eliminations for the rest of the week.”
At field events only the top-16 archers over qualification advance into eliminations.
Unlike target archery competitions, archers shoot again in 12-target mini qualification-style courses, with all scores reset to zero. Then, the top eight move into the second eliminations, which runs the same, until only four are left for the finals.
It’s not the competition structure that Bryony believes is the biggest contrast to the target discipline, though.
“The mental game is different, especially when it comes to elimination because obviously in target you’re shooting one against one, and it would be first person against the last ranked. In field it’s like you shoot your qualification and then the scores get completely wiped, so tomorrow it could be anybody’s game,” she said.
“As it’s a group elimination, I think it might take the pressure away a little bit because you’ve just got to out there and shoot the best you can, and if that’s good for the day it’s going to be enough.”
Recurve junior man and Rio 2016 Olympian Patrick Huston shot the best scores of his category on both the unmarked and marked days, combining for 719 points overall – 40 more than Italy’s Yuri Belli, the second-best finisher.
“I really enjoyed my shooting here at the world field championships,” said Patrick, who also shot a new personal best. “By far, it has been the best I have shot on field course in a long time and it turned into a personal best. I really enjoyed it.”
Through the unmarked course, Patrick posted 369 points. Over the marked one, 350.
“The unmarked day wasn’t particularly tricky in terms of slopes but it laid out quite a few perspective shots,” he said.
“The marked day today was really interesting and extremely windy, which makes things a lot more difficult, and lowered the scores a little bit – but, in general, I feel I shot well.”
The compound junior categories were headed up by Nico Wiener from Austria and Erica Benzini from Italy; the barebow junior by Alessio Noceti from Italy and Malin Medbo from Sweden.
The 2016 World Archery Field Championships run 27 September to 2 October in Dublin, Ireland.
