International indoor archery season resumes at Nimes Tournament 2019

Europe’s longest-running major indoor tournament returns in 2019 for its 21st year, hosting upwards of 1000 archers in the Parc des Expos in the southern France city of Nimes.

Famous in archery circles for historically being one of the highest-scoring events, it’s often tougher to advance to the head-to-head phase of Nimes than it is to do the same at the world indoors. Of course, that’s partly because there‘s no number-of-athletes-per-country limit at open entry events such as this.

And it shows in the quality and depth of the entry list as, once again, Nimes features a line-up of the best archers in the world.

Factsheet: Nimes Archery Tournament 2019

• Venue: Parc des Expositions Nimes
• Dates: 18-20 January
• Number of athletes: 1177 (160 recurve men, 88 recurve women, 247 compound men, 84 compound women)
• Points: 1000 series ranking points for a division winner; top 64 finishers score
• Streaming: Live medal matches on Sunday 20 January – watch on World Archery’s Facebook page or YouTube channel

Schedule

Friday 18 January: qualification

Saturday 19 January: qualification and eliminations

Sunday 20 January: secondary tournament and finals (juniors morning, seniors afternoon)

Circuit leaders

• Recurve men: Oh Jin Hyek, Steve Wijler, Crispin Duenas (not competing) – 250 points
• Recurve women: Gabriela Bayardo – 345 points
• Compound men: Mike Schloesser – 330 points
• Compound women: Alexis Ruiz – 500 points

Favourites

Leading the compound men’s elite ranking arriving at this fourth event of the series, Mike Schloesser has a history in Nimes. 

But where has the time flown to? It’s been four years since he shot that first perfect ranking round during qualification in the Parc des Expos.

Kris Schaff, Stephan Hansen and Braden Gellenthien have all won the event in recent years. They’re also all attending.

Alexis Ruiz hasn’t been beaten in the two events she’s shot so far on the indoor circuit. France will be her toughest test with experienced opponents like Paige Pearce, Toja Ellison, Linda Ochoa-Anderson, Marcella Tonioli and more joining her on the line.

Ruiz shoots in the last of four qualification sessions and will see what the majority of the others post before she scores an arrow.

Mexican by birth, Dutch by residence, Gaby Bayardo has more elite ranking points than any other recurve woman so far this season. She finished second at legs one and three but hasn’t won an event, yet.

With 1000 ranking points available in Nimes, compared to 250 at previous tournaments, she’ll need to hold off challenges from an entry list that includes 11 women from Korean pro teams…

…plus teenage rising star Casey Kaufhold, who beat her at the season opener in Luxembourg. Kaufhold was upset in the quarterfinals by Korean world record holder Kang Chae Young in Rome. (She had qualified higher.)

The top-32 cuts to make the head-to-head phase of Nimes in the recurve men’s competition over the last three years have sat at 578 points, 575 and 575.

Although French Olympic medallist Jean-Charles Valladont withdrew from the tournament last week citing injury – something he needs to recover from fast before national trials for the world championship team begin – the field is still stacked.

Brady Ellison finished third in 2016, third in 2017 and second in 2018.

Despite sending a large contingent, Korea hasn’t had a winner since 2015, when youngster Min Byeongyeon beat Olympic Champion Oh Jin Hyek​ with nine straight 10s in the final.

The Nimes Archery Tournament is the fourth stage of the 2019 Indoor Archery World Series.