Amy Oliver beat Italy’s Jessica Tomasi by five points in the recurve women’s gold medal match at the Dublin 2016 World Archery Field Championships to win her first ever world field title – and it meant something extra special.
“It’s really emotional. I just can’t really believe that it has happened. I was just kind of shooting. I wasn’t really thinking about the end result, I just wanted to shoot nice shots – and that was really all the way through the week,” said Amy.
“It’s emotional because my grandma passed away recently and she was a field archer. So it’s nice to be able to do it for her.”
Amy was one point behind Tomasi after the first target. She went two points ahead after the second, and then Tomasi tied the match at 40 points after three.
For the last target, Amy shot 2-4-4. Jessica, 4-miss-1.
The match was already decided after Tomasi had shot her second arrow – Amy had won.
“I had no idea. I wanted to look at how much I needed, and then I thought, I’m not going to look. Too much pressure,” said Amy.
“I saw that she missed and then I was like: ‘Right, I just need to shoot a shot, it needs to be on the face’. I knew it needed to be on the face at least. I did it; can’t believe I did it.”
Amy was holding back tears.
“[My family,] they’re already massively proud. It was for my grandma,” she said.
“She was a field archer, the same with my grandad – well pretty much my entire family are field archers. So they’re going to be really happy. We’re going to have a gold medal party. They said they’d do that.”
Joanna Rzasa from Poland took the bronze medal by a point over Germany’s Daniela Klesmann.
The 2016 World Archery Field Championships run 27 September to 2 October in Dublin, Ireland.
