WROCLAW, Poland - As the World Games continues with the barebow competition, USA's John Demmer III and Jenifer Stoner qualified 6th and 8th respectively headed into today's elimination matches.
Similar in equipment to recurve, barebow archers are not allowed to use sights, excessive weights, dampers or stabilizers. They often shoot modern carbon and aluminum arrows with modern bows and rests. Most make use of a technique called 'string walking', where the archer moves the draw hand up and down the string at different distances while aiming with the point of the arrow.
Demmer III who was the top qualifier and team gold medalist at last year's World Archery Field Championships in Dublin, Ireland, made his World Games debut this week. Under the new format of the Games, archers are seeded from their placement in qualification and are then filtered into two pools. Seeds 3, 6, 7, 10 and 11 are assigned to Pool A. Seeds 4, 5, 8, 9 and 12 are assigned to Pool B.
The top two seeds are guaranteed a place in the semifinals, and shoot a match to determine who wins the right to decide which pool winner to shoot their semifinal against. The bottom two seeds in a pool shoot a match, with the loser leaving the competition and the winner advancing to the next match, against the next lowest-seeded athlete in the pool.
Demmer, ranked 6th, came in for the 3rd match of the A pool against #7, Pasi Ahjokivi of Finland. Tied after the first target, Demmer took a 3-point lead on the second, which he retained as the two matched scores on the next two targets. Demmer then increased his lead with two targets to go with a 14 to Ahjokivi's 9 and ultimately clinched the win 81-75 to advance.
Then facing 3rd seed from Italy, Giuseppe Seimandi, who World Archery deemed the "one to beat." Seimandi has won gold in the barebow men's competition at the last two editions of the World Games, in 2009 and 2013.
Demmer picked up a 4-point lead on the second target and held it through the next two targets. On the fifth round, he increased his lead another two points and while Giuseppe made a solid comeback on the final target, it was not enough to overtake Demmer's lead.
Demmer will face No. 2 seed Martin Ottosson of Sweden in the semifinals tomorrow.
Jenifer Stoner, started archery in 1987 but made her international debut 27 years later, when she finished 13th at the 2014 World Archery Field Championships in Zagreb. She improved upon that placing two years later with eighth in Dublin. Stoner matched her top finish today, winning her first match against 9th seed Miyuki Maruyama of Japan 74-59 before falling to higher seeded Chantal Porte of France in the next round 79-67.
Complete results from the competition can be found here. For more, follow USA Archery on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
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