SHANGHAI, China - The Hyundai Archery World Cup season opened today with qualification rounds in Shanghai. The year after the Olympic Games, there are often some changes in country's lineups, but the USA recurve squad stayed pretty consistent. Looking at a World Championship and World Games year, competition is heated and intense.
Reo Wilde (Pocatello, Idaho) topped the compound men's field with a 707. Tied with Korea's Kim Jongho on score, Wilde took the top seed on the X count, with 30 Xs to Jongho's 27 as both had 59 out of 72 arrows scoring 10s. Steve Anderson (Salt Lake City, Utah) and Braden Gellenthien (Hudson, Massachusetts) qualified 3rd and 5th respectively with 705 and 704 in an incredibly tight competition field to take the top team qualification slot. Just making the cut to an automatic bye into the third round of elimination matches, Bridger Deaton (Pella, Iowa) ranked 16th with a 698.
Zach Garrett, who won silver at this event last year, was the top U.S. recurve men's qualifier, ranking 5th between the top 4 seeded archers, all from Korea. Also scoring well, Brady Ellison (Globe, Arizona) qualified 8th just four points behind Garrett with a 675. 23rd seed Collin Klimitchek (Victoria, Texas) will round out the team squad, ranked 2nd behind Korea.
Reported winds in the afternoon posed a challenge for some of the second session of archers. Mackenzie Brown (Flint, Texas) was the top U.S. women's recurve scorer, with a 14-point increase between her second and first halves of qualification. Brown's 650 put her in a 4-way tie for 13th, but she will rank 14th on the 10 count. Together with newlywed LaNola Shepherd (Lehi, Utah) and Khatuna Lorig (Denver, Colorado) the team ranked 11th.
Brown and Garrett teamed up for the recurve mixed team competition, where the 5th seeded duo took a narrow quarterfinal win over Great Britain in a shoot-off before falling 5-1 to Korea in the semifinals to advance to the bronze final later this week.
For the U.S. compound women, Jamie Van Natta (Toledo, Ohio) was the high scorer, ranking 11th with a 689. Teammates Cassidy Cox (Albuquerque, New Mexico) and Lexi Keller (Omro, Wisconsin) helped the U.S. earn a 5th seed team qualification, while Van Natta and Wilde's combined score ranked them 4th for the mixed team event.
Wilde and Van Natta had close matches, taking a 152-149 win over Slovenia in the first round, a 152-151 victory of Turkey in the quarterfinal, and tied Denmark 156-156 in a high scoring semifinal. Denmark's 20 beat the U.S.'s 19 in the shoot off and they advanced to the gold final, while USA will shoot for bronze later this week.
Competition resumes tomorrow with early individual matches and team matches through the semifinals. Complete results from today's competition can be found at www.worldarchery.org. For more, follow USA Archery on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Photo by World Archery.
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