Mexico’s Aida Roman and Germany’s Elena Richter will go head-to-head for the recurve women’s gold medal at the 2018 World Archery Indoor Championships, held at the NFAA Easton Archery Centre in Yankton, South Dakota on 14-19 February.
“I’m really happy to finally be back on the final stage after a difficult start of the year, I like indoors and I think I’m good at it,” said Aida. “All my matches were good and I tried to control as much as I could all my shots, some of them were strong some others not so much but everything was good overall.”
Seeded 11th with 573 out of a possible 600 points, she beat both Sayana Tsyrempilova from Russia and Audrey Adiceom from France with 6-2 scores.
“I’m feeling strong but it’s indoors, so anything can happen. You can shoot a good score but could get knocked out by an even better score, too. You never know. I want to give all my best and try to win but if it doesn’t happen, at least I’ll know I’ll try as much as I can,” she said.
“My qualification wasn’t good but my matches were. I went back to some old equipment after Vegas and it’s working, I’m happy with that.”
A world indoor champion from Nimes in 2014 and with multiple indoor world cup medals to her name, Aida will face Elena Richter from Germany, who has won team medals at the world indoors but never podiumed individually.
Richter scored 583 and was seeded fourth over the 60-arrow 18-metre ranking round. She then beat Tuiana Dashidorzhieva from Russia, 6-2, and Fumiyo Miyaki from Japan, 6-4.
“I’m happy but I’m actually feeling sick,” said Elena, who shared a room in Vegas with teammate Lisa Unruh, who only shot one end of qualification due to being ill.
“So when I was shooting, I just thought that there was a reason for me to be standing out there and not in bed. I fought hard throughout my matches, tried to be focused and it worked.”
Fumiyo Miyaki and Audrey Adiceom will shoot bronze.
Second seed Sjef Van den Berg from The Netherlands will shoot against fifth seed Daisuke Tomatsu from Japan for the recurve men’s title.
The Dutchman first beat Italy’s Massimiliano Mandia, 6-2, and then Taylor Worth from Australia, 7-3. Throughout all his matches, Sjef was almost perfect, shooting eight 30s and only one 29.
“I think I dropped one today, I think that was good shooting. I’m very good and just happy to be out there again in the big stage,” said Sjef.
Shooting against Tomatsu, who also shot perfect in his semifinal match against Canadian man Crispin Duenas, Sjef knows what it will take to win: “Lots of 10s, I think.”
“I’m not sure how many points he shot during qualification but I think it was also a great score. In finals, I have seen him shooting pretty much 30s. It’s the same game, just a different venue.”
Crispin Duenas and Taylor Worth will shoot in the bronze medal match.
The 2018 World Archery Indoor Championships takes place in Yankton, USA on 14-19 February.
