There are few modern cities more rooted in ancient history than Rome, with its incredible Coliseum, Forum and Trevi Fountain to go along with that famous Italian cuisine.
Some of the reasons, perhaps, that it’s proven such a popular destination for its first stage of the Indoor Archery World Series.
Over 600 archers are competing at this 250-level event, with more than 350 of those in the four main competition divisions. They have the opportunity to collect points towards the elite ranking that qualifies shooters for the Indoor Archery World Series Final in Vegas.
With the withdrawal of Seoul from this season’s indoor calendar, the Roma Archery Trophy is the last major tournament of 2018.
Factsheet: Roma Archery Trophy 2018
- Venue: Fiera di Roma convention centre
- Dates: 14-16 December
- Number of athletes: 638 (116 recurve men, 61 recurve women, 117 compound men, 60 compound women)
- Points: 250 series ranking points for a division winner; top 16 finishers score
- Streaming: Live medal matches on Sunday 16 December – watch on World Archery’s Facebook page or YouTube channel
Schedule
Friday 14 December: qualification
Saturday 15 December: qualification, secondary and charity tournaments
Sunday 16 December: eliminations and finals (starting around 13h00 GMT/14h00 CET)
Circuit leaders
- Recurve men: Oh Jin Hyek, Steve Wijler (not competing) – 250 points
- Recurve women: Jeon Hunyoung (not competing), Casey Kaufhold – 250 points
- Compound men: Mike Schloesser – 310 points
- Compound women: Toja Ellison, Alexis Ruiz – 250 points
Favourites
After two events, three of the four elite categories of the Indoor Archery World Series have a tied lead.
Toja Ellison and Alexis Ruiz, joint atop the compound women’s rankings after the former won the GT Open and the latter took honours in Macau, both compete in Rome. They’ll face stiff competition not least, for the first time this year, from Hyundai Mobis’ So Chaewon and Song Yun Soo.
Song is the reigning outdoor world champion, So a stalwart top-qualifier on the Korean team.
World number one Mike Schloesser also leads the compound men’s rankings indoors. As well as world numbers two to four – Stephan Hansen, Braden Gellenthien and Seb Peineau – Rome is fifth-ranked Kris Schaff’s first appearance on the circuit this season.
Schaff won the Hyundai Archery World Cup Final earlier in 2018.
After winning the first event of the circuit, 14-year-old Casey Kaufhold missed the second stop but returns in Rome for leg three. It will mark the up-and-coming youngster’s debut test against elite Korean recurve women like outdoor world record holder Kang Chae Young.
Talking of elite talents, the Roma Archery Trophy features the last three recurve men’s Olympic Champions: Ku Bonchan (2016), Oh Jin Hyek (2012) and Viktor Ruban (2008).
Oh leads the circuit ranking, too, tied with Steve Wijler, who is not competing at this tournament.
The Roma Archery Trophy is the third stage of the 2019 Indoor Archery World Series.
