Kim Jae Hyeong, Song Jiyung, Mike Schloesser and Sarah Prieels won their respective divisions at the second stage of the 2016/17 Indoor Archery World Cup in Bangkok, Thailand.
Both Kim and Song’s recurve finals went to single-arrow shoot-offs.
Hyundai Steel’s Gye Dong Hyun, the number one seed in the recurve men’s competition, went 4-0 down on Kim Jae Hyeong in their gold medal match, before shooting two consecutive sets of 30 to draw things level. Both shot perfect in the final three-arrow series to force the tiebreaker.
Gye shot first, a good 10. Kim, representing Ulsan Nam-Gu, shot second – and put in an excellent 10.
Song Jiyung – from the Hyundai Department Store team – and team LH world-record holder Park Sehui’s women’s final was incredible. Between them, the pair shot eight perfect sets.
The 10s in the tiebreaker were close, barely enough to separate the two in such a tense final, but Song’s measured closer to the middle.
Mike Schloesser showed no sign of nerves when he jumped to a 30-28 point lead over Bridger Deaton in the compound men’s gold medal match. Both archers finished with six arrows in the middle, but Schloesser – the favourite after shooting one point off perfect in the ranking round – was too far ahead to be caught, and won the match 148-146.
The compound women’s final was closer.
Sara Prieels was a point behind So Chae Won after one end, then flipped the advantage when her opponent put in three nines in the second.
Level again after four, Prieels shot two 10s in the final end – including a high-pressure last arrow – to better So by a point, 141-140.
The second stage of the 2016/17 Indoor Archery World Cup runs 10/11 December 2016 in Bangkok, Thailand.
