Taipei – Thursday, October 31, 2013
Today, teams won the first medals of the 2013 Asian Championships at Taipei Stadium, while three new nations qualified for the 2014 Youth Olympic Games.
This morning’s session at the Asian Championships saw men’s and women’s recurve and compound teams go through the elimination stages – before the finalists battled for medals in light rain this afternoon.
Between the two team sessions, recurve cadets won Asian athlete places at Nanjing, in the finals of the Youth Olympic Games Continental Quota Tournament.
Continental Qualification Tournament – Boys
The Philippines and Indonesia claimed the two available quota spots in the boys competition thanks to Luis Gabriel MORENO and Panjiaji Bukhori RAHMAT, respectively. In their semi-finals, MORENO overcame Prennoy MURONG (BAN), while RAHMAT beat Ansar AGUDIYEV (KAZ). MORENO then took a satisfying straight-set victory in the final, while AGUDIYEV gave Kazakhstan some consolation by claiming bronze.
Continental Qualification Tournament – Girls
Bianca GOTUACO (main photo) then won the Philippines the right to send a pair to Nanjing, after she made the gold medal final in the girls’ event. She beat Oyuntungalag CHIMEDTSEREN (MGL) 6-2 in the semi-finals, even after the Mongolian archer took an early lead. Khazakhstan got the second Youth Olympics space available, courtesy of Aruzhan ABRAZAK for the full joy of the Kazakh delegation. She needed a shoot-off to beat Nur Naseha RUSLI (MAS) in their semi-final match, and then won another one-arrow shoot-off in the final to take gold over GOTUACO. RUSLI lost the bronze medal match to CHIMEDTSREREN.
Compound Women Team
With only seven teams in the category, competition started at the quarter-final stage. Iranians Mino ABEDI, Shabnam SARLAK and Riona Siska SARI posted the highest score of the day; their 230 points in semi-finals against Korea took them to the final. They faced host-country Chinese Taipei for gold: WEN Ning-Meng, CHEN Li Ju and HUANG I-Jou (photo) beat Iran for the Asian Team Champion title on home soil, 224-217. CHOI Bomin, SEOK Ji Hyun and YOUN So Jung contested the bronze medal with India. Lily Chanu PAONAM, Jyothi Surekha VENNAM and Trisha DEB gave India an initial lead, but eventually fell behind: losing 222-217.
Compound Men Team
Living up to expectations set over the season, the top-qualified countries made it through to the compound men’s team semis: India versus Chinese Taipei, and Korea versus Iran. India and Korea both stormed to clear victories – setting up a rematch of the women’s compound team bronze final, and a chance for Indian revenge! They made good on the threat: Abhishek VERMA, Ratan Singh KHURAIJAM and Sandeep JUMAR won gold over Korea’s MIN Lihong, CHOI Young Hee and KIM Jongho in a tight, high-scoring battle: 233-231. Iran took revenge for the women’s event, too. This time contesting bronze, rather than gold, the men’s trio of Amir KAZEMPOOR, Hamzeh NEKOEEI and Esmaeil EBADI outscored Chinese Taipei’s KUNG Lin-Hsiang, CHEN Po-Kai and WANG Chih-Hao.
Recurve Women Team
The performance of the day came in the shape of Indonesia’s recurve women eliminating Deepika KUMARI’s India in the quarter-finals. Ika Yuliana ROCHMAWATI, Diananda CHOIRUNISA and Titik Kusuma WARDANI later had a chance at bronze, despite losing their semi-final to Chinese Taipei by a point. It was not to be, though: Japan’s Ayano KATO, Kaori KAWANAKA and Yuki HAYASHI took the podium spot instead, recovering from a semi-final loss in the day’s first Japan-Korea derby. In the gold-medal match, Korea’s CHOI Misun, JOO Hyun Jung and JUNG Dasomi had no mercy for home-country team TAN Ya-Ting, LE Chien-Ying and LIN Shin-Chia: Chinese Taipei settled for silver.
Recurve Men Team
Korea lined up against Malaysia in one recurve men’s team semi-final, while a head-to-head against Japan was Chinese Taipei’s reward for making all four of today’s semi-finals.
Korea’s KU Bonchan, JIN Jae Wang and JUNG Sung (photo) were just too strong for Malaysia: taking a 221-210 and spot in the final. World Cup Finalist Khairul Anuar MOHAMAD, and teammates Atiq Bazil BAKRI and Haziq KAMARUDDIN, shot for bronze against Chinese Taipei – who lost to Japan in their semi-final. No team medal for Malaysia in this championships: hosts KUO Cheng-Wei, CHANG Wei-Hsiang and CHU Shu-Yu took the match. Japan won’t be taking home a team title, either: Takaharu FURUKAWA, Shungo TABATA and Shohei could not raise their game enough in the final. They lost, 220-224, to Korea – who claimed the men’s-women’s recurve team double.
Stay tuned tomorrow, for eliminations and finals in the individual and mixed team compound competitions.
World Archery Communication
Source: www.worldarchery.org
