BELEK-ANTALYA, Turkey - After a long and trying few days of shooting in hurricane force winds, Team USA archers are looking forward to medal matches beginning tomorrow.
The compound mixed team of Erika Jones (Grand Island, Neb.) and Jesse Broadwater (Jennerstown, Penn.) will compete for the bronze medal against No. 11 seed, India. All of the finals from the World Archery Championships will be broadcast live, for free, on http://www.youtube.com/archerytv beginning at 4 am ET on Saturday, October 5. Schedule information is available here.
Tune in again Sunday morning to watch Brady Ellison (Chula Vista, Calif.), Jake Kaminski (Gainesville, Fla.) and Joe Fanchin (Oceanside, Calif.) battle for gold against the team from the Netherlands - and cheer for Ellison and Khatuna Lorig (West Hollywood, Calif.) versus Korea in the recurve mixed team gold medal final.
The finals promise to be unpredictable, considering the wind that has afflicted the archers the past few days of eliminations. Recurve women's team member Miranda Leek (College Station, Texas) noted in a Facebook post: "Two words: horrible wind." She elaborated, "Arrows were blowing off rests. Rules were changed to a single target (instead of two) at 50m for the compound team matches and the time limit was doubled.
"People changed their equipment in efforts to make it more wind-friendly. When I shot yesterday (also horrid wind), I was successful to have my pin on the right bale for any amount of seconds in a row. [Officials] told people to get out from underneath the tents in case they decided to fly away and hurt someone in the process. Clocks [TVs , chairs, scopes, and people at full draw all] were blowing over!� Flags were going nuts. Not the best conditions."
To see the severity of the wind, visit USA Archery on Facebook for video clips. The women's compound team from Colombia ingeniously discovered that they could wear backpacks for stability while shooting in the wind; it worked in their favor against Team USA in the quarterfinals. The US men's compound team was also eliminated in the quarterfinals this morning by Denmark. Martin Damsbo (DEN) said all the team could do was "let it fly and cross fingers."
Recurve star Lorig added after her match yesterday, "I have never have shot in this kind of wind in my 29 years of archery experience. Shooting today was like [playing the] lottery, if you're lucky you win, I shot strong shots but unfortunately no luck for me today."
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