The Italian junior women’s team, made up of Chiara Rebagliati, Sara Noceti and Erica Benzini, was top seeded in Dublin with 1958 points, 92 ahead of second-ranked Great Britain.
Italy beat Sweden by 14 points, 41-27, in the semis, to meet the Brits – Bryony Pitman, Rebecca Lennon and Sophie Benton – in the finals, in a replay of the gold medal match from the 2015 European Field Championships in Rzeszow, Poland.
“When we knew that we were going for gold at the worlds against Great Britain, we went even more excited,” said Chiara Rebagliati. “Winning at the Europeans was great but here, well, things are at a different level.”
Italy took the lead after the first three arrows. Through the next six, Britain fought back and tied the match at 37 points each.
Italy shot 13 on the final target, Great Britain 10. A win for Italy.
“Those three arrows were tense,” Chiara added. “Being tied made it difficult and interesting at the same time. We think it gave extra emotion to our win.”
“We worked hard for nearly one year and it’s really good that we managed to win the world title.”
The USA took junior women’s team bronze.
The USA junior men, led by Collin Klimitchek, shooting with Steven Collins and Mark Schlaudraft, took a lead over their Swedish gold medal match opponents after the first three arrows, and didn’t come close to relinquishing that lead on the way to becoming world champions.
The Americans finished 15 points clean above of the Swedish squad, which missed two arrows.
“It was awesome and a lot of fun, a really good match,” said Klimitchek. “We had the rain on it and it poured down in the middle of the match, but it’s been raining all day so we were pretty used to it.”
Despite not even knowing each other before the event, the team worked out a strong dynamic in time for the final.
“I never met them [Steve and Mark] before we came on this trip and it feels like we match pretty well, pretty fast. It’s a really good team, probably the best field team I have shot with,” Collin added.
Italy’s junior men took bronze.
The 2016 World Archery Field Championships run 27 September to 2 October in Dublin, Ireland.
