LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- The 2018 World Archery Masters Championships at the World Archery Excellence Centre will be the first time world champion titles will be awarded to masters archers. With categories for archers ages 40+, 50+, 60+ and 70+ in the recurve, compound, barebow, longbow and instinctive bow classes, archers have the chance to compete in indoor, outdoor target and field archery.
356 archers from 44 countries have taken center stage in Lausanne for this inaugural competition that was open to all for registration. Official world champion titles will only be awarded to those in the indoor compound and recurve 50+, the outdoor targett compound and recurve 50+ and the field compound barebow, recurve and compound 50+ divisions; the remaining categories will also compete for prestigious honors.
With competition today, tomorrow and Saturday, divisions have been split into groups and will rotate through the competition opportunities.
In today's indoor competition, the recurve 50+ women were the championship category, competing with 60 arrows at both 25 and 18 meters. Laura Bennett Shelton slipped into the top spot over Switzerland's Nathalie Dielen at the very end with a 1114 finish to take the top spot and the first World Archery Masters Champion title! With an 1101, USA's Tatyana Muntyan finished with the bronze.
Also notable, in the recurve 40+, Jennifer Schneider, Amy Skogen and Carrie Lin finished 5th, 6th and 7th respectively with 1016, 967 and 925, while Barry Watson came in 10th for the men with a 1050. USA's Daniel Stafford won the longbow 40+ men with a 677 and Richard Doria Jr. finished second for the longbow 60+ men with a 624.
The field competition also named winners based solely off qualification scores and today's championship category was the compound 50+. With unmarked distances posing an extra challenge, USA's Richard Smith picked up the bronze with a 383 over 24 targets, just six points behind the gold. Scott Wilson finished 9th with a 359. Rebecca Burks also clinched the bronze with a 340, while Bernadette Diab finished 5th with a 325.
The outdoor target competition featured 72 arrows of qualification and then head to head elimination matches. The recurve 50+ men's championship category saw Gary Yamaguchi pull ahead in qualification, ranking 10th, but tides turned in the head to head matches with a 7-3 upset for Yamaguchi in the 1/16th round. 18th seed Friedhelm Klymko also took a 7-3 upset in the 1/16th and continued strong, taking out the 2nd seed in the 1/8th before falling 7-3 to Germany's Adolf Mohr in the quarterfinals.
For the recurve 60+ women, USA's Angie Olds and Olga Usherenko qualified 8th and 9th respectively, lining up for the 1/8th round against each other. Olds took a 6-0 victory to advance to shoot against top seed Lucie Filion of Canada in the quarterfinals, where she took a 7-1 win. Another 7-1 semifinal win put Olds in the gold final against Australia's Elizabeth Hole. Olds and Hole went back and forth through five sets, but Olds came out on top with the ultimate 6-4 decision.
In the barebow 50+ division, USA champion Rick Stonebraker was a strong standout, qualifying first with a 641, 23 points clear the rest of the field. Holding strong, Stonebraker took 7-1 wins straight through to the gold final against Australia's John Deer. Deer posed a challenge, but Stonebraker took the 6-4 victory and the gold.
Susan Palsbo overcame a 3rd place qualification to win the semifinals 6-2 before taking a 6-0 shut out gold win over Great Britain's Sarah Fern. Marvy Schuman finished 4th.
In the compound 40+ division, 5th seed Charles Puls climbed from a 5th place seed to upset top seed Alexey Bashkirev of Russia in the semifinals 140-130 and took the gold final against Germany's Dirk Overfeld to a one arrow shoot off. Overfeld's 9 outscored Puls' 8, leaving USA with the silver finish. USA's Avram Granett went out 117-136 in the quarterfinals after a 7th place qualification.
Brandi Granett, the other half of the Granett husband and wife duo, won the compound 40+ women's silver. After topping qualification, Granett took strong match wins until falling by just a point 139-138 to Germany's Tanja Nordmeyer-Kuhne in the gold final. 4th seed Shawn Wood fell 140-127 to Granett in the semifinals and 124-131 to Germany's Kerstin Weyand in the bronze final to finish 4th overall.
Complete results from the competition are available at www.worldarchery.org. Competition resumes tomorrow with championship categories featuring the compound outdoor, recurve women outdoor, recurve men indoor and barebow field. Follow USA Archery on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for more from the event.
< Back to All News
