News

Diverse Madrid individual finals line-up to feature athletes from 13 different countries

22 August 2019

Madrid, Spain

Real name:

The last of the individual elimination matches at the 2019 World Archery Youth Championships saw a diverse group of archers secure berths for the finals, which will be held in front of Madrid’s Royal Palace.

There are 13 different nations represented across the 16 finalists.

Athletes from Canada, Chinese Taipei, Colombia, Croatia, Denmark, India, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Norway, Russia, Turkey and the USA will shoot for the cadet and junior world titles.

The line-up is headlined by senior world silver medallist Anders Faugstad.

“I feel relieved. It’s been a lot of stress for me getting to the gold medal match after I was the runner-up at the world championships in the Netherlands,” he said. “People write articles about me. I don’t read them but I know they’re written and it puts pressure on me.”

Anders’ opponent in the compound junior men’s final is Austin Taylor of Canada.

“I know the guy I’m shooting against. He is pretty good but I think I’m going to have a little bit of an advantage on the finals field,” said Faugstad.

“I know the feeling of shooting in an arena and what to expect from the cameras, everything around. It might be a little advantage but not enough to not be stressed at all. I have to be focused all the time.”

Two of the other heavy favourites in Madrid fell at the last hurdle and will shoot for bronze medals at these championships.

Turkish archer Mete Gazoz, who had already come back from a 4-0 deficit to win his quarterfinal match in a shoot-off, lost to Korea’s Kim Hyeonjong in the recurve junior men’s semifinals.

“I was here to win gold,” said Mete. “It’s not enough for me, not what I wanted, but I will fight for it.”

Compound women’s world number one and defending junior world champion Alexis Ruiz was beaten in the last four by Ipek Tomruk. Tomruk was the second seed, one place ahead of Alexis.

The list of notable archers into gold medal matches includes the USA’s Jack Williams, Waka Sonoda of Japan and Croatian compound junior woman Amanda Mlinaric.

The recurve junior women’s final line-up is perhaps the most intriguing.

Although the Asian teams of Korea and Chinese Taipei were not as dominant over qualification as in past years at the world youth championships, and at world events in general, Korean 20-year-old Jang Minhee still seeded first.

She was upset in the semifinals by an inspired performance from Mexico’s Ana Paula Vazquez. Vazquez will face another South American archer, Colombian Valentina Acosta, for gold.

Eighteenth seed Acosta upset sixth seed Lisa Barbelin, fifth-ranked Cha Songhui and number two qualifier Elisa Tartler as she scythed through her side of the bracket.

“I was shaking but I controlled myself very well. I have started to use the nerves in my favour instead of against me because sometimes that can be very tricky,” she said.

“That’s something experience gives you. After feeling the pressure [at the Pan American Games] in Lima, where I shot a televised match for bronze and it was winning the medal or nothing, I think here I feel more relaxed. I learned from that.”

“I fought hard in all my matches today.”

Acosta won the recurve junior women’s gold medal at the Pan American Championships last year. Vazquez competed as a senior at that event and came fourth.

Only Mexico, with three, and Russia, with two, have multiple individual finalists in Madrid.

Alongside Vazquez for the Mexican squad, Caleb Urbina will shoot for recurve junior men’s gold and Sebastian Garcia will appear in the compound cadet men’s final.

Garcia’s opponent is Daniil Kosenkov. He and compound cadet woman Arina Cherkezova are the two Russian athletes remaining in the competition.