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12 bronze medals awarded to teams from 11 countries after Madrid eliminations

23 August 2019

Madrid, Spain

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Team and mixed team bronze medal matches at the 2019 World Archery Youth Championships took place on the Complutense University rugby field in Madrid on Friday morning.

Teams from 11 different nations won the 12 third-place podium places.

The Netherlands, Spain, Mexico, Chinese Taipei, India, Great Britain, Turkey and Mexico took the team bronze matches; China, Japan, Norway and Australia won bronze medals in the mixed team events.

Gold medal matches in the team competitions will be decided in the finals arena in front of Madrid’s Royal Palace, along with the individual bronze and gold finals.

Waka Sonoda will compete for the recurve cadet women’s world title on Sunday. Paired with Kaisei Ito, she already took a bronze after defeating Parth Sushant Salunkhe and Komalika Bari of India to win Japan’s first medal of these championships.

“Since we had practise before this competition, we had confidence here and we were able to get the medal,” said Kaisei. Waka added: “We are really happy with the bronze medal match. I’m happy I have another match, too.”

China beat Austria in a shoot-off, 19 to 15, to claim the recurve junior mixed team bronze.

In the compound mixed team event, Norway took the junior medal, and Rory Blake and Alysaa Mollema of Australia the cadet third-place finish.

“It was fantastic. I knew we had the potential to win, but these are our first world championships,” said Rory. “It’s a surprise, we’re so happy.”

Alyssa said that although it was the first time they had shot together, she realised she needed to find the right words to help her teammate relax. It worked.

Mexico had a successful individual eliminations day, putting an event-leading three athletes into gold medal matches. Mexico also leads the medal table after the team bronze medal matches.

The country’s recurve cadet men’s team beat Russia, 5-3, while the compound cadet women’s team defeated Italy, 230-223.

Mexico has one team going for gold, in the compound cadet men’s final.

Korea and the USA are set to collect the most team medals. Korea will contest six recurve finals – all team and mixed team gold medal matches, both junior and cadet. The USA is in five of six compound title bouts plus the recurve cadet mixed team final.