COPENHAGEN, Denmark - Shooting at the World Archery Championships resumed today with early individual elimination matches through the 1/24th match. Crazy winds turned into heavy rain and eventually sleet, making tough conditions for even tougher matches.
Crystal Gauvin (Dayville, Connecticut) held strong against the wind and led both of her matches through every end for decisive wins including a 14 point victory over Susmita Banik of Bangladesh and 6 points over Julia Oleksejenko of Latvia.
Gauvin will join compound teammate Jamie Van Natta (Toledo, Ohio) into the 1/16th round which begins tomorrow. Van Natta pre-seeded into the 1/16th from her high placement in qualifications. Lexi Keller (Omro, Wisconsin) trailed in her match from the beginning and was ultimately upset by Nancy Eligibly of Egypt.
Alex Wolfgang Wifler (Crete, Illinois) who recently picked up the nickname "Wolfman" was the sole US compound male competitor today as Braden Gellenthien (Hudson, Massachusetts) was pre-seeded into tomorrow's competition. Wolfman was fierce in his first match, opening and closing the match with 30s, he knocked out Kai Knechtel of Germany before falling to Albertus Cornelius of South Africa by one point.
LaNola Pritchard (Lehi, Utah) who was the highest ranked female recurve archer for the US won her first match but was rattled in the second. From a 4-0 trail behind higher seeded archer Natalia Sanchez of Colombia, Pritchard came back for a 6-4 win.
Teammate Khatuna Lorig (West Hollywood, California) went back and forth in the 1/24th with 102nd seed Mayra Mendez of Venezuela who had just upset 11th seed Ok Sil Choe of North Korea. Mendez put up a great fight against Lorig and forced a one arrow shoot off, but Lorig kept cool and shot her one arrow in the gold and won the match to advance to the 1/16th tomorrow.
Ariel Gibilaro (North Branford, Connecticut) trailed 4-0 in her first match against Georgia's Yulia Lobzhenidze. Although she tied the next two sets, Lobzhenidze reached her 6 set points for the win, knocking Gibilaro out of the competition.
Zach Garrett (Wellington, Missouri) won his first match with 6-0 shut out, before falling in 1/24th to Olympian Marcus Dalmeida from Brazil 7-1. Collin Klimitchek (Victoria, Texas) opened his first set of the 1/48th with a 2-0 lead but then struggled and fell 6-2 to Austria's Dominik Irrasch. Brady Ellison (Globe, Arizona) was pre-seeded into the 1/16th round and will not compete until tomorrow.
#UpsetWatch continued today on Twitter as unexpected upsets changed up the brackets in early matches. One of the most shocking was Olympic Champion Oh Jin Hyek of Korea knocked out in his first match by 102nd seed Sanzhar Mussayev.
Competition resumes tomorrow with elimination matches from the 1/16th through the semifinals for all divisions. A detailed schedule and complete results are available here. A live stream of the finals will be available on ArcheryTV. For more updates from the field, follow USA Archery on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
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