French, Spanish recurves among Korean top men’s seeds

The most famous Korean man never to have competed at an Olympic Games, KIM Woojin was seven points up on his Olympic Champion teammate OH Jin Hyek over Antalya 2015 qualification.

His 693 out of a possible 720 total led the pack. 

Just nine points behind the day’s best and two points behind Jin Hyek, though, was Spain’s Miguel ALVARINO. A surprise candidate for the top eight let alone the top three. 

Miguel said the psychological work he had been doing with his teammates helped prepare for the competition – and, after re-evaluating the Spanish squad’s performance in Shanghai, they had been working to complement each other’s scores. 

Having a strong head would have been completely necessary: Not only did Miguel score with the Koreans, he scored with the Koreans! Sandwiched between leader Woojin and Shanghai individual gold medallist KU Bonchan on the shooting line, he would have known exactly where he was in relation to his celebrated competitors all the way. 

He kept focused and it paid off. “I’ve been changing my technique and it’s working. I just hope I can keep shooting strong and get top scores for the rest of the week,” he said. 

France’s recurve season started badly in Shanghai. 

The nation’s recurve men did not mark the top-16 cut into the eliminations while the women squeaked through in 16th only to be knocked out by the Koreans in their first match. The pressure was clearly mounting for the squad to perform at its second outing. 

Antalya yielded much better seedings. The recurve men’s team landed the second rank for the head-to-heads, off the back of Lucas DANIEL’s fifth-place individual finish. 

“I’ve been shooting much more, changing up my training routine,” LUCAS revealed. 

“The extra practice has really given me confidence in my shooting, my technique and my performance. Mostly, this was on my mental game.” 

Daniel’s 676 total was drawn with fourth Korean LEE Seungyun but the Frenchman had more arrows in the 10-ring. 

Italy’s David PASQUALUCCI, Takaharu FURUKAWA from Japan and Chinese athlete XING Yu shot a tiebreaker for the last two spots in the top-eight bye into the third round. PASQUALUCCI and FURUKAWA went through, Yu relegated to being the top seeded archer to start the eliminations from the very beginning. 

Third seed in the team event went to Jayanta TALUKDAR and India, Spain had fourth while Japan was down in 12th. 

Read more about Antalya 2015.