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Beginner’s guide to the Samsun 2018 Hyundai Archery World Cup Final

25 September 2018

Samsun (TUR)

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The 2018 Hyundai Archery World Cup Final is a world-class invitational competition that closes the five-leg international archery season.

This year’s tour started in Shanghai, then stopped at tournaments in Antalya, Salt Lake City and Berlin. For the first time, the winners of each stage received automatic spots at the World Cup Final.

They’ll be joined at the Final in Samsun by at least three qualifiers on points per division, plus a representative of the host nation, Turkey.

Three of the four champions of 2017 return in the 32-athlete line-up, which also includes 11 current or former world number ones, and a grand total of 3590 career matches completed at world ranking tournaments in our database.

Factsheet: Samsun 2018

Venue: West Park Exhibition Arena, Samsun
Dates: 29-30 September 2018
Number of athletes: 32 (16 recurve, 16 compound), +1 compound woman for mixed team
Medals: 6 (individual – recurve men, recurve women, compound men and compound women; mixed team – recurve and compound)

Defending champions

Recurve men – Kim Woojin, Korea
Recurve women – Ki Bo Bae, Korea (not competing)
Compound men – Braden Gellenthien, USA
Compound women – Sara Lopez, Colombia

Three facts

1) To finish a year in which the qualification structure for the Hyundai Archery World Cup Final was changed to guarantee stage winners a space in Samsun, a new way to seed the athletes for the quarterfinals has been introduced.

The top-two ranked athletes in each division will still be pre-seeded at either end of the brackets, but the remaining six (including the host representative) will be randomly drawn into the rest of the spots. That draw takes place on Thursday evening and will be live streamed by World Archery.

2) Brady Ellison has been to eight Hyundai Archery World Cup Finals to date (each since 2010) – and medalled at all of them except Mexico City 2015. He’s won four titles to lead all athletes at the competition.

Sara Lopez is hot on his heels. Season champion in 2014, 2015 and 2017 – she missed 2016 for personal reasons – the Colombian world number two needs just one trophy to catch up.

3) A host nation archer has never won the Hyundai Archery World Cup Final – but in Turkey, they have a serious shot. Both Mete Gazoz and Yesim Bostan qualified as stage winners, bringing the number of Turkish athletes shooting in Samsun to six.

(The nation gets an automatic space in each competition.)

On top of Gazoz and Bostan, 2015 Hyundai Archery World Cup Champion Demir Elmaagacli and reigning European Archery Champion Yasemin Anagoz represent logical threats.

Schedule

Thursday 27 September: Draw (live streamed by World Archery)

Friday 28 September: Practice on finals field

Saturday 29 September: Compound finals (women in the morning, men in the afternoon)

Sunday 30 September: Recurve finals (women in the morning, men in the afternoon)

Equipment

Recurve: The modern evolution of traditional bows that have been used around the world for 1000s of years. The limbs curve away from the archer at the top, giving the “re-curve” its name.

An archer holds the riser, in the grip, and draws the string back to their face, placing their hand under their chin, using a finger tab to protect their fingers from the string. He or she aims at the target using a front sight.

The arrow, sitting on a rest attached to the riser, is propelled at speeds of over 200kph when the archer releases the string.

Compound: A bow invented in the 1960s that uses a levering system of cables and pulleys to efficiently impart energy from bent limbs to an arrow upon release, which can then travel at speeds of over 250kph.

Inherently more accurate than traditional equipment, compound bows are lighter to hold at full draw and athletes are permitted to use magnifying lenses in their sights, levelling bubbles and mechanical release aids.

How it works

Recurve athletes shoot at 122cm targets set 70 metres away. The Hyundai Archery World Cup Final consists of a head-to-head bracket run from quarterfinals to the gold medal match, with matches resolved using the set system.

Athletes shoot sets of three arrows. The highest-scoring athlete in the set receives two set points; a draw awards one set point to each athlete. The first athlete to six set points wins the match.

Tiebreaks are resolved in a single-arrow shoot-off, with the athlete whose arrow lands closest to the middle winning the match – unless both recurve archers score a 10, in which case the first tiebreak is re-shot.

(Mixed teams shoot sets of four arrows, two per athlete; the first pair to five set points wins the match.)

Compound athletes shoot at 80cm targets set 50 metres away. The Hyundai Archery World Cup Final consists of a head-to-head bracket run from quarterfinals to the gold medal match, with matches resolved using cumulative score.

Athletes shoot 15 arrows, in five ends of three arrows, and the highest-scoring athlete wins the match.

Tiebreaks are resolved in a single-arrow shoot-off, with the athlete whose arrow lands closest to the middle winning the match – unless both compound archers score an X-ring 10, in which case the first tiebreak is re-shot.

(Mixed teams shoot 16 arrows, two per athlete per end.)

Roster

World ranking provided in brackets. Athletes that qualified first and second are pre-seeded, while the other remaining are positioned after the draw.

Compound women (Saturday morning)

1: Sara Lopez, Colombia (2)
2: Sophie Dodemont, France (3)
NR: Linda Ochoa-Anderson, Mexico (9); Chen Yi-Hsuan, Chinese Taipei (7); Yesim Bostan, Turkey (1); So Chaewon, Korea (5); Marcella Tonioli, Italy (11)
Host country: Gizem Elmaagacli, Turkey (32)

Compound men (Saturday afternoon)

1: Mike Schloesser, Netherlands (1)
2: Braden Gellenthien, USA (3)
NR: Abhishek Verma, India (5); Kris Schaff, USA (6); Stephan Hansen, Denmark (2); Pierre-Julien Deloche, France (7); Kim Jongho, Korea (8)
Host country: Demir Elmaagacli, Turkey (12)

Recurve women (Sunday morning)

1: Chang Hye Jin, Korea (1)
2: Lee Eun Gyeong, Korea (4)
NR: Deepika Kumari, India (8); Lisa Unruh, Germany (5); Ksenia Perova, Russia (2); Tan Ya-Ting, Chinese Taipei (3); Lei Chien-Ying, Chinese Taipei (9)
Host country: Yasemin Anagoz, Turkey (11)

Recurve men (Sunday afternoon)

1: Lee Woo Seok, Korea (2)
2: Kim Woojin, Korea (3)
NR: Mauro Nespoli, Italy (4); Steve Wijler, Netherlands (1); Mete Gazoz, Turkey (6); Brady Ellison, USA (7); Taylor Worth, Australia (14)
Host country: Fatih Bozlar, Turkey (78)