USA Starts with National Record, Top Rankings at Antalya World Cup
OutdoorHub 05.02.12
Antalya, Turkey – The second stage of the Archery World Cup opened today in Antalya, Turkey, and showed the world that all four U.S. teams are serious about upholding the “best nation in archery” status bestowed upon them by World Archery.
Both compound teams qualified number one today, as well as the compound mixed teams; for the recurves, both the men’s and women’s teams attained a number four qualification, as well as a number two ranking for the recurve mixed team.
Reo Wilde (ID) qualified number one for the compound men, shooting a 712, just two points off his own world record of 714. Peter Elzinga (NED) took the second spot with 709, while Martin Damsbo (NED) shot a 707 for third. Team USA’s Braden Gellenthien (VA) qualified sixth with his score of 706, while Dave Cousins (ME) was 11th with 704. Rodger Willett, Jr. (VA) ended his day in 19th, shooting a 700. Together, the scores of Wilde, Gellenthien and Cousins propelled the team to their number one qualification.
For the women, it was Russia’s Albina Loginova who topped the category with 698. She was followed closely by Italy’s Marcella Tonioli with 696, and USA’s Erika Anschutz (NE), who posted a 695 for third. Multi-time world record holder Jamie Van Natta (OH) shot a 695 to qualify fourth, while Christie Colin (PA) was fifth with 692. Team USA’s Diane Watson (FL) finished the day in tenth, shooting 686; together, the team qualified first, and also earned the top spot for the mixed team.
The recurve men’s ranking round saw two new world records for the Korean archers: Im Dong Hyun, the archer who is legally blind, shot a 696 for his ranking round; together with his teammates, they also broke the recurve men’s team qualification world record with a 2069.
However, Team USA’s Brady Ellison (AZ), the number one world ranked archer, shot a record of his own, unofficially breaking the U.S. record with his score of 690. Italy’s Mauro Nespoli and Korea’s Oh Jin Hyek qualified third, shooting 689.
Team USA’s Joe Fanchin (CA) qualified 29th today, shooting a 666; Jacob Wukie (OH), shooting a 665, qualified 33rd, while Jake Kaminski (NY) hit a 647 for 68th. Together, the team reached a fourth place qualification, behind Korea, Italy and China.
Korea’s Lee Sung Jin qualified first for the recurve women with her score of 669; she was joined in the top three by teammate Hye Jin Chang, shooting 667. Chinese Taipei’s Chieh-Ying Le took third with a 661. Team USA’s Jennifer Nichols (WY) also got off to a strong start in this event, qualifying sixth with 656.
Fellow Olympic hopeful Miranda Leek (IA) shot a 649 for fourteenth, while “Hunger Games” archery coach Khatuna Lorig (CA) finished in twentieth with 646, and Heather Koehl (WI), shot a 604 to qualify in the eighty-second spot.
The competition in Antalya will pick up on Tuesday with individual elimination rounds. To follow live scoring, visit http://www.worldarchery.org, or follow USA Archery on Twitter and Facebook for updates.
