Celebrating its 10th year in a row hosting a stage of the Hyundai Archery World Cup, and 11th event in total, the Chinese city of Shanghai opens this year’s tour once again, with 359 athletes from 46 countries along for the ride.
Shanghai was the fourth leg on the inaugural circuit in 2006, then took a two year hiatus, before returning in 2009.
Having crowned over 300 medallists in 10 years of past results, Shanghai’s seen some of history’s best competitive archers, and most competitive matches. Here’s eight other things we noticed.
1. First stage
Acting as the fourth stage of the international circuit in 2006 and from 2009 to 2011, Shanghai has been the official opening event of the Hyundai Archery World Cup for the last seven years, since 2012.
With Antalya, Shanghai is one of the two founding cities of the circuit remaining on the tour.
2. venues
In 2006, when Shanghai first hosted a stage of the Hyundai Archery World Cup, qualification was held at the Shanghai Sports Centre and the finals at the Minhang Sports Park.
Both qualification and finals were then moved to the Yuanshen Sports Centre Stadium in Pudong in 2009, which has held the ranking round ever since.
For five years from 2011, the Shanghai finals took place by the river that runs through the middle of the city. Since 2016, a park in the middle of the financial district with a dramatic ornamental lake has been the backdrop for some even more dramatic medal matches.
3. Arrows in anger
In 10 years of previous tournaments, there have been over 400,000 competition arrows shot at Hyundai Archery World Cup stages in Shanghai. That breaks down to around 225,000 in qualification, and more than 80,000 in each of the individual and team competitions.
The mixed team event, which is still relatively young, has seen just over 4,000 competition shots recorded.
(Imagine if you included practice arrows, too!)
4. 648 medals
From 2006 to 2017, Shanghai awarded 588 medals in total. (Individual and team, and mixed team from 2009.) With the 60 from this year’s edition, that number rises to 648.
5. Dominance
The USA’s compound squad has been highly successful in Shanghai, winning nine gold medals between the men and women. Korea’s recurve men’s and women’s teams follow with a combined eight.
6. Triple champions
Compound archer Sara Lopez and recurvers Ki Bo Bae and Yun Ok Hee are the only three athletes to have won Shanghai three times. Lopez shoots in 2018, neither Ki nor Yun are on the Korean team.
Compound men Sebastien Peineau and Reo Wilde have both won in Shanghai twice.
7. No repeats
The recurve men’s division is the only division in Shanghai won by a different athlete each year:
- 2006 JANG YONG-HO
- 2009 CHEN WENYUAN
- 2010 IM DONG HYUN
- 2011 JOE FANCHIN
- 2012 BRADY ELLISON
- 2013 OH JIN HYEK
- 2014 HIDEKI KIKUCHI
- 2015 KU BONCHAN
- 2016 SJEF VAN DEN BERG
- 2017 STEVE WIJLER
8. Two home golds
Chen Wenyuan won China its first gold medal on the Hyundai Archery World Cup circuit on home soil, over Korea’s Oh Jin Hyek, in 2009. Five years later, in 2014, the Chinese recurve women team’s beat Colombia to gold.
The first stage of the Hyundai Archery World Cup takes place in Shanghai, China on 23-29 April.
