WROCLAW, Poland - The World Games is a prestigious multi-sport event featuring both target and field archery competitions. Field archery for recurve and barebow archers was introduced to the World Games in 1985 in London. The compound discipline was added in 1993 before switching from field to target in 2013.
Competition began this morning with qualification for the recurve archers. World Archery wrote up a fantastic breakdown of how the scoring works, available here. In the morning, the archers shot at 12 targets at unmarked, or unknown, distances and in the afternoon, 12 targets at marked distances. The afternoon portion today was delayed by weather, creating additional challenges in the wooded terrain.
Of the 12 recurve men, the only country to earn spots to send two archers was the U.S. Representing our nation are top contenders and historical standouts in field archery: Brady Ellison (Globe, Arizona) and Vic Wunderle (San Antonio, Texas).
Forty-one-year-old Wunderle won this tournament in 2009, when the World Games was held in Kaohsiung and although Brady Ellison has taken gold at the last two editions of the World Archery Field Championships, he has not yet won gold at the World Games.
Ellison ranked solidly in first with a 395 - 30 points clear of second place finisher, Amedeo Tonelli of Italy. Wunderle was another 10 points behind that with 355 to rank 5th.
Heather Koehl (Sheboygan Falls, Wisconsin) has been an active member of the U.S. team for years and finished 9th at the previous World Games and 7th at last year's World Archery Field Championships. Ranking 8th today with a 323, Koehl is well within reach of a personal best finish in international competition.
Under the new rules of the Field archery event, competition resumes tomorrow with elimination matches. The twelve men and women who competed today are 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.
As the highest ranked archer on the field, Ellison needs to shoot just his first match tomorrow before guaranteeing a podium finish in the finals on Tuesday - and he's won 77% of the 226 head-to-head international contests in World Archery's database.
Complete results from today's competition are available here. For more, follow USA Archery on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Some information attributed to World Archery.
< Back to All News
