UK Student Archery Association

Gwangju Quick Review [13/Jul/15]

The archery events at the Summer Universiade concluded last week and whilst there weren't any medals heading UK-wards - many of those stayed in Korea - there were some performances to be proud of. In all individual categories, the top 8 seeds were fast tracked through to the last 32. The 48 archers from positions 9 to 56 contest the 1/24th round. Categories with 57 or more entrants have a 1/48th round, with 56th v 57th, 55th v 58th, etc. as required.

In qualifying, Ashe Morgan (Birmingham) scored 650 to finish 24th out of the 68 entrants. Top was Lee Seungyun with 693. Alex Smith (Oxford) was 33rd on 636, with Thomas Hall (Warwick) on 605 in 63rd. Hall had been 26th at half way. Vladimir Hurban (Edinburgh/Slovakia) was 48th on 622. With 68 competitors, Thomas Hall was up against the 50th seed in the 1/48th round and lost in straight sets against an inspired opponent. Alex Smith got a bye in the 1/48th (or round of 96?), but lost the 1/24th round lost in 4 close sets against the man who beat him by a single point in qualifying. Vladimir Hurban won his 1/48th match 6-0, before losing his 1/24th match by the same margin.

Sally Gilder (Chipping Camden Academy) qualified in 44th position out of 58 ladies recurve with 591. Top lady recurve was reigning Olympic champion Ki Bo Bae, who broke the ladies WA 720 record with 686. The top three places in gents and ladies recurve qualifying were all taken by Koreans.

Ashe Morgan won his 1/24th match in straight, but competitive sets, becoming the only British gent recurve to make the last 32. Here he came up against the 7th seed Yu Guan-Lin (Taiwan) and a titanic match ensued. Morgan won the first set but was immediately pegged back in set 2. The third set was shared leaving the match finely poised. In set 4, the Taiwanese archer banged in a maximum 30, but Morgan stole set 5 to force a shoot off. In the shoot off however, another 10 from Yu was enough to extinguish British recurve hopes.

There were 54 gents compounds who shot the 50m round. Jordan Mitchell (Ulster) was top Brit, 26th/679. Further down the leaderboard were Matthew Dale (Warwick) 45th/658 and Phillip Tucknott (Edinburgh) 46th/657. Dale lost out on 44th position on a coin toss. Dale and Tucknott both shot high 130s in their 1/24th matches, but were beaten by 7 and 6 respectively. Had Matthew Dale won his coin toss (!) in theory he would have lost by a single point instead. Jordan Mitchell however did win his 1/24th match 145-143, before also beating the 7th seeded Mexican archer in the last 32 148-144. Mitchell's run came to an end in the last 16 however, as he lost 145-147 to 10th seeded Italian Jacopo Polidori.

Hope Greenwood (Edinburgh) scored 663 to finish 29th out of 43 ladies compounds. Stephanie Clason (Edinburgh) and Georgina Brown (Birmingham City) were 36th/649 and 39th/648. Georgina Brown beat a more highly ranked opponent in the 1/24th round by 7 points, but lost by the same margin in the last 32 to the 7th seed from Poland. In a cruel twist, Edinburgh club mates Greenwood and Clason were drawn against one another. 5,500 miles from home, Greenwood took the match by a single point 141-140, before losing to 4th seed (and eventual gold medallist) Song Yun Soo of Korea.

In the team events, UK qualified in 13th (men's recurve), 16th (mixed recurve), 13th (men's compound), 10th (women's compound) and 16th (mixed compound). Although all the British teams did make the cut off for the team KO rounds, unfortunately there were no KO wins as the Brits went out to higher ranked oppoents. The ladies compound team came closest in a tight 222-224 [corr.] defeat to Italy. The Brits had been a point behind after 6 and 12 arrows but wiped out that disadvantage in end three. Italy won the final end 56-54 to go through.

For Ashe Morgan, Jordan Mitchell and Hope Greenwood this was a second bite at the international student competition cherry and the previous experience was clearly a benefit to all three.

In 2016, it's off to the far east again, with the World University Archery Championships (as distinct from the Universiade) taking place in Ulaanbaatar, the capital of Mongolia. So start collecting those WA 1440 and 720 scores now.