Türkiye’s Mete Gazoz adds world title to Olympic crown
Mete Gazoz kept calm in torrential rain to win the recurve men’s individual title at the 2023 Hyundai World Archery Championships in Berlin.
He beat Canadian Eric Peters 6-4 in the final, becoming the first man since Darrell Pace in 1976 to simultaneously hold world and Olympic titles.
“Today I feel like I am the best archer on the planet, and I will continue like this,” Gazoz said. “I love Berlin but now I love it even more. I hope the next World Championship is here!”
The Turkish archer won his first World Cup medal and his second World Cup stage in the German capital city, and now a first World Championship medal.
He edged world number one Marcus D’Almeida in a heavyweight semifinal after drawing the first three sets, with D’Almeida going on to take bronze over Indonesia’s Arif Pangestu in the third-place decider.
The Brazilian and the Indonesian both sealed Olympic places for their countries in third and fourth alongside Canada courtesy of Peters’ silver.
Gazoz had already helped his country secure a quota place as Türkiye won silver in the recurve men’s team event yesterday.
Peters came fifth at the Hyundai Archery World Cup earlier this year in Türkiye, where he beat Gazoz, but was unable to repeat the feat in Berlin. His silver medal is the best result in Canada’s history as the 26-year-old fought hard across all sets.
“It was close but it is good, it is more than I expected coming here,” he said. “I have known I have had the ability, it sucks it has worked out this way but I have a lot to look forward to for the rest of the year and it is just one step.”
Peters was enthusiastically cheered on by mental performance coach Joe Lesner as he looked to enjoy the finals stage and the silver medal marks a just reward for a tough year after losing his international team coach.
“It has been hard but it doesn’t mean we have been unable to find some success. It has been nerve-wracking so I thought if I am going to be there, I really might as well have some fun.”
Bronze medallist D’Almeida was optimistic about his semifinal defeat and took the positives out of qualifying Brazil an Olympic quota place, despite failing to advance on the silver medal he won in the same event two years ago in Yankton.
“I’m really happy I get to go to the Olympics,” he said. “It’s really important that I just lost to the Olympic Champion, and I’m happy about my level here.”
“Everyone in my family was in Brazil watching me here so that made me very excited.”
Pangestu may have missed out on what would have been a first world championship medal for Indonesia but his Olympic qualification and performance over the week was something to behold.
The teenager knocked out reigning World Champion Kim Woojin in the round of 16 but revealed he was affected by the difficult conditions in Berlin on finals day, losing 6-4 to Peters in the semifinal.
“I was very confident in the semifinal, but because of the weather and my cold hands it's kind of distracting for me,” he said.
Before going to Berlin, the Indonesian archers did an acclimatisation in the Netherlands so they had some practice in this weather and this was a key for success.
“I really wanted the ticket and I got it, this is the second time I'll be going to the Olympics so hopefully we can achieve more.”
“That's the spirit for our team and hopefully we can get more spirit from my ticket.”
Competition concluded with recurve men’s individual finals on Sunday afternoon in Berlin.
Steve Wijler
