Turkish Anthem to Play For Junior Compounders at Home Worlds

Turkey overcame an opening eight to wipe out a two-point deficit before the end of the second six-arrow series of its gold medal match with Russia in the compound junior women’s competition at Ankara 2016.

The two teams were all level at the halfway point, 114 each, and after 18 arrows, tied at 171.

Russia posted 9-10-10 to open the final end, then Gizem Elmaagacli, sister of Archery World Cup Champion Demir, Evrim Saglam and Nevin Akdag matched it, though one of the arrows was on the line, and would need a judging call to be confirmed.

A subpar 27 finish from the Russian team left things open for Turkey, who managed to eke out an extra point from the target.

If the line call was confirmed, the Turkish team would take the match, if it was downgraded - then the final would go to a tiebreaker. It was confirmed, and Turkey took victory, 228-227.

“It was so exciting,” said Gizem. “It was a great honour. We knew all the Turkish team and spectators would support us in the competition. We are so proud to have won this.”

“We wanted to cry before the first end, but we held ourselves,” added Evrim. “We came here to hear our national anthem and we’ve got it now.”

Evrim took back to the arena to compete for the bronze medal in the individual compound junior women’s competition. After taking an early lead over the USA’s Athena Caiopoulos, she struggled to find the middle through the middle portion of the match.

Trailing by two heading into the final end, Evrim closed the gap on Athena with a pair of strong 10s. Athena’s arrows landed just outside of the centre ring.

With the match resting on the final arrow, Athena found the 10 again but Evrim couldn’t, losing 139-140.

The Turkish junior compound team had a second fourth-place finish in the individual competition, courtesy of Furkan Dernekli, who came so close to beating Anton Bulaev, from Russia, but was unable find the middle of the target in a sudden-death tiebreaker.

“I was so nervous before the shoot-off and I just couldn’t shoot the 10,” said Furkan; unfortunately, Bulaev could. “I’m still very happy with these world championships as I made the finals.”