Ryoo Su Jung sets new recurve women’s world record with 595-point qualification in Macau

Ryoo Su Jung of the Korean professional team Hyundai Department Store has set a new recurve women’s world record for the 60-arrow 18-metre ranking round, shooting 595 out of a possible 600 points at the Macau Indoor Archery Open.

It beat the previous record of 594, set by Park Sehui in Nimes in 2016, by one.

This second event of the 2019 Indoor Archery World Series in Macau is Su Jung’s first international indoor tournament, having previously competed as a member of the Korean cadet team at the youth worlds in 2011 and university team in 2016.

Her teammates Jung Dasomi, Jeon Hunyoung, Song Jiyung and Yun Mi Jin qualified second to fifth, all shooting 580-plus.

Olympic silver medallist Jean-Charles Valladont and London 2012 Olympic Champion Oh Jin Hyek tied on top of the recurve men’s ranking with 594 points. Valladont took pole in the coin toss.

Alexis Ruiz’s 588 put her comfortably ahead in the compound women’s field.

World number one Mike Schloesser dropped just two points to lead the compound men on 598 out of 600.

“I was a bit jet-lagged after the long flight to start but later on everything fell into place and I started shooting really good shots,” said Schloesser.

“Strassen was tough because I went there for more than just a fifth place but I think that motivated me to go for it here.”

Closest competitor Demir Elmaagacli had 595 but two of the top-five scorers were local archers from Macau. Sun Yingjie scored 592 and Xue Zheng had 590, the latter matching Korean international archer Choi Yonghee.

India’s Abhishek Verma and Rajat Chauhan, and Iran’s Esmaeil Ebadi, Majid Ahmadi and Nima Mahboubi all scored between 580 and 588 to qualify in the top 16.

Only the top-32 qualifiers advance to matchplay at indoor tournaments. The recurve men’s cut was 522 points, recurve women’s at 291 and compound men’s at 563. There was not cut in the compound women’s event.

All top-10 qualifiers in each division survived the first round of eliminations, although number-six-ranked compound man Rajat Chauhan needed a good 10 in a tiebreak after tying with Hong Kong’s Leung Wing Chi on 143 points for the 15-arrow match.

Competition in Macau continues with the remaining elimination matches on Sunday. The medal matches will be streamed live on World Archery platforms from 14h00 local time.

The Macau Indoor Open is the second stage of the 2019 Indoor Archery World Series.