Lisa Unruh wins 2nd consecutive world field title; Oonuki Wataru takes 1st

Olympic silver medallist and World Archery Indoor Champion Lisa Unruh won the recurve women’s title at the 2018 World Archery Field Championships in Cortina, Italy, where Japan’s Oonuki Wataru defeated the Italian hosts’ Massimiliano Mandia to claim his first ever world title.

“I’m really, really happy and proud to be a double world champion,” said Lisa. “I think I had a big advantage over Naomi because I shot yesterday in this course, so I knew the distances and how to shoot on the 60-metre target.”

Her gold medal match against Great Britain’s Naomi Folkard was a rematch of the final at the 2017 World Games in Wroclaw, Poland, which Lisa also won.

In Cortina, Unruh was one point up after the first target, 14-13, and she never let go of her advantage. She took the match 54 points to 40, after Naomi missed twice on the difficult last target – the 60-metre extreme-uphill shot.

The world number five shot the finals course once before during the team medal matches.

“I didn’t improve so much compared to yesterday. The only thing is that I told my coach to tell me if my bow was straight at 60-metres and this is why I didn’t shoot left or right on this target. Just straight,” Lisa added.

World field debutant Oonuki Wataru of Japan beat Massimiliano Mandia from Italy by eleven, 58-47, in the recurve men’s final.

“Mandia beat Brady Ellison and he has many experience, he’s a good player. I just thought I had to win,” said Oonuki. “The reason for my win is shooting fast and not holding long because this would have made me nervous.”

The Japanese archer, who finished third at the 2017 World Games, often had two or three arrows loosed before his Italian opponent had begun to score on the target.

Brady Ellison of the USA, champion at the previous edition of the world field, and Japanese woman Nami Fukasawa collected the bronze medals.

The 2018 World Archery Field Championships took place in Cortina, Italy on 4-9 September.