Lees top Yankton junior recurve ranking round

Korea, no stranger to high finishes, claimed the recurve junior men’s and women’s top seeds at the World Archery Youth Championships in Yankton.

The big starts came courtesy of two archers named Lee: Lee Woo Seok and Lee Eun Gyeong

We’ve written a very similar storyline about this pair before. 

At last year’s Nanjing 2014 Youth Olympic Games, Lee and Lee – the two Lees, the power pair – topped the 60-metre qualification as cadets. There, they even each set brand-new world records for the round. 

By Yankton, they’d both ascended to the junior ranks. 

They were no less impressive than one year before. In the top three of the leaderboard from beginning to end, Lee and Lee emerged top of the Korean 1-2s that led both the girls’ and boys’ rankings. 

“I had a lot of fun shooting with my teammates here,” said Lee (Woo Seok), whose previous international experience in Nanjing was a lonelier one. Only one athlete in each division from each nation shoots at a Youth Olympics.

“The rest of the archers from around the world were great, too. Compared to the Youth Olympic Games a year a go, the level is good, improved.” 

Both he and teammate Lee (Eun Gyeong), see this second international call up as a stepping stone to greater things. Eun Gyeong highlighted the Korean senior team as a goal and Woo Seok said he came to Yankton to learn as well as compete. 

“I’ll be watching the ability and shooting sills of archers from China, Japan, Chinese Taipei and the USA,” he revealed. 

The USA’s Collin Klimitchek and Zach Garrett, who shot in the Antalya Archery World Cup stage finals as part of the nation’s senior team, both made the top eight. 

Compound qualification was topped by two athletes no strangers to the international senior circuit. 

Current Archery World Cup Final Champion Sara Lopez was the only compound junior woman to score more than 700 points. She set the latest world record for the round in Antalya just two weeks ago, at two points more than she shot in Yankton. 

Sara’s 704 led Denmark’s Tanja Jensen by 12, while Yesim Bostan from Turkey trailed Jensen, in turn, by five for the third seed. 

Lopez said she and teammate Camilo Cardona, the 12-ranked junior men’s qualifier, gave the rest of the Colombian squad advice based on their experience. Sara is also a defending gold medallist at the World Archery Youth Championships. 

She also admitted that this particular event poses an unusual challenge. 

“I set high expectations for personal results at the last world champs and the youth event followed soon after,” Sara said.

“It turned out that the juniors were doing even better than the seniors in some competitions. Now, coming here, I knew the level I was going to find.” 

The compound junior men’s field had Stephan Hansen leading the way from start to finish. 

He posted the same total score as Sara, 704, after being pushed to the finishing post by Croatian Mario Vavro – who, with his huge and very recognisable dreadlocks, landed the second seed. Danish senior team world champ Stephan won the junior world title at Wuxi 2013. 

Vavro was the bronze medallist cadet at that event. 

All junior athletes in Yankton advanced to the individual eliminations.

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