At the end of all four stages of the 2018 Hyundai Archery World Cup, the seven qualifiers in each division for the season-ending final in Samsun are decided.
Turkey still gets to add four athletes. As host country, it receives a place for a non-qualifier in the four competitions: recurve men, recurve women, compound men and compound women.
Names followed by “(W)” indicate a stage winner, meaning automatic qualification under the rules for this season, while “(1)” and “(2)” identify the top seeds in each of the competition categories.
Recurve men
Qualified: Lee Woo Seok (W, 1), Kim Woojin (W, 2), Mauro Nespoli (W), Steve Wijler, Brady Ellison, Mete Gazoz (W) and Taylor Worth
Defending Hyundai Archery World Cup Final Champion Kim won stage one in 2018 in a rematch of the title contest against Ellison at the end of 2017. He subsequently lost the Antalya final to teammate Lee – but wasn’t on form in Berlin.
Samsun is Ellison’s ninth Hyundai Archery World Cup Final.
It’s Gazoz, Worth and Lee’s first.
Gazoz qualifying means Turkey will have two athletes competing in the recurve men’s competition in Samsun.
Recurve women
Qualified: Chang Hye Jin (W, 1), Ksenia Perova (W), Deepika Kumari (W), Tan Ya-Ting, Lei Chien-Ying, Lisa Unruh and Lee Eun Gyeong (W, 2)
This roster includes the reigning Olympic Champion in Chang and World Archery Champion in Perova. It also includes an Olympic silver medallist in Unruh and the icon of Indian archery in Kumari.
Kumari has won four silver medals at past world cup finals.
Chinese Taipei quietly qualified two recurve women to Samsun in Tan Ya-Ting and Lei Chien-Ying. The pair has a combined three prior appearances at the tournament, and two bronze medals (Lei in 2015, Tan in 2016).
Ki Bo Bae, who won the Hyundai Archery World Cup Final in 2017, did not make the Korean team in 2018 and is the only gold medallist from Rome not to return to defend their crown.
Compound men
Qualified: Mike Schloesser (W, 1), Kim Jongho (W), Stephan Hansen (W), Braden Gellenthien (2), Abhishek Verma, Kris Schaff and Pierre-Julien Deloche
Gellenthien is the defending Hyundai Archery World Cup Final Champion and, despite not winning a stage, accrued the second-most ranking points of any compound man after taking bronze medals in Shanghai and Antalya – and fourth in Salt Lake City.
Mike Schloesser and Stephan Hansen are two of the very best.
But Schloesser has only won the Hyundai Archery World Cup Final once (2016) in three attempts (2015, 2016 and 2017) and Hansen has only qualified once (2017). It was the Danish world number one that lost the last final to Gellenthien.
Compound women
Qualified: Sara Lopez (W, 1), Yesim Bostan (W), Sophie Dodemont (W, 2), Linda Ochoa-Anderson, So Chaewon, Chen Yi-Hsuan and Marcella Tonioli
Sara only shot two stages of the international tour in 2018 – in Shanghai and Salt Lake City – but she won both of them. The defending and three-time winner (2014, 2015, 2017) of the Hyundai Archery World Cup Final can draw level with Ellison on four (2010, 2011, 2014, 2016) for most all-time if she wins Samsun.
So also only shot two stages in 2018, taking bronze medals at stops one and two. She also averaged more points per arrow than any other compound woman on the season.
At the age of 44 and returning from a four-year hiatus spent away from international competition, Dodemont qualified for the season-ending event for the first time.
Bostan opened up a second space for Turkey by winning her home stage in Antalya.
At home again for the Hyundai Archery World Cup Final in 2018, it’s a prime time to step up and wrestle the world number ranking into her own hands – after holding it for just a couple of weeks in between Sarah Sonnichsen and Lopez in June.
The fourth stage of the 2018 Hyundai Archery World Cup takes place in Berlin, Germany on 16 to 22 July.
