Shooting under the rain

  Qualification had to be followed by 1/48 and 1/24 individual elimination rounds for compound men and women. Due to bad weather conditions and high risk of thunderstorms it had to be postponed to the morning of Saturday, 16 July.   Recurve Men W1/W2 After the first distance Oscar DE PELLEGRIN (ITA) was leading the ranking with 282 points. DE PELLEGRIN started shooting at high level in 1997, he got two bronze medals at the IPC World Archery Championship in Cheongju (KOR) in 2007 and at the Paralympic Games in Sydney (AUS) in 2000. Just one point below (281 pts.) JUNG Young Joo (KOR), World Champion in 1999 and silver medalist at the Paralympic Games in Athens (GRE) in 2004. Third place for Ebrahim RANJBARKIVAJ (IRI), winner of the Asian Para Games 2010. Sixth place for the bronze medalist of Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games TSENG Lung Hui (TPE).                                   After the second distance DE PELLEGRIN kept the lead with the second highest score of the distance (312 pts.), followed by JUNG (310 pts.) and TSENG (316 pts.). The bad weather changed the performances of the athletes on the field and caused a 20 minutes delay during the third distance. Probably due to this factor the top three positions were mixed up. Leading the ranking until the end of the qualification was JUNG, followed by TSENG and DE PELLEGRIN with 1250, 1245 and 1232 points respectively.   Recurve Men Standing After the first distance the Asian Para Games champion DONG Zhi (CHN) was leading the ranking with 291 points. Following with tight results were the three Russians Oleg SHESTAKOV (288 pts.), Mikhail OYUN (288 pts.) and Timur TUCHINOV (286 pts.).  Seventh place for newcomer Jody O’NEILL (IRL), followed by Beijing gold medallist Dambadondog BAATARJAV with respectively 270 and 268 points. After the 70 meters distance DONG was still leading the ranking with 324 points, followed by the three Russians with SHESTAKOV and TUCHINOV swapping places. KIM Suk Ho (KOR) made a good recovery and climbed up in the ranking from the 11thposition to the 6th. The situation at the top of the ranking after the third distance was unchanged. The only remarkable change was in the middle of the ranking where Matthias ALPERS (GER) climbed up from the 16th place to the 7th.  At the end of the qualification first place for DONG with 1283. Second place for OYUN with 1255, followed by his teammate TUCHINOV (1251 pts.) and SHESTAKOV (1239 pts.). The first of the Italians Mario ESPOSITO finished his competition with 1096 points, gaining the 30th position.   Compound Men W1 Today compound W1 archers shot only the two long distances, while the other two distances will be shot tomorrow. After the 70 meters distance Jean Pierre ANTONIOS (FIN) was leading by two points on Jeffrey Rhoden FABRY (USA) with 330 and 328 points respectively. ANTONIOS won the gold medal at the European Para Archery Championships in Vichy (FRA) in 2010 and FABRY was World Champion several times: in 2003 in Madrid (ESP), in 2005 in Massa Carrara (ITA) and in 2007 in Cheongju (KOR). Third and fourth place for the gold and silver medalists of Beijing 2008 David DRAHONINSKY (CZE) with 323 points and John CAVANAGH (GBR) with 318 points. After the second distance the ranking was basically the same. FABRY swapped places with ANTONIOS, gaining first position, while DRAHONINSKY maintained third position. The compound W1 men qualification finished after the second distance and will be resumed tomorrow 14 July at 9:30 local time.   Recurve Men Open Team The recurve men team open in the World Para Archery Championship is composed of the best three recurve archers of the Country and both recurve W1/W2 and Standing shoot together. The best qualified teams were Russia (3745 pts.) with OYUN, SHESTAKOV and TUCHINOV, three recurve standing archers. Second place for Korea (3661 pts.) with JUNG, LEE and KIM. Third place for France (3548 pts.) with three recurve standing archers: LASVENES, MEUNIER and PERROT. The teams will compete next Friday, 15 July for the assignment of the Paralympic quota places.   Dajana PICCOLO, Rebecca RABOZZI World Archery Communication