Juniors win 1st medals of Yankton world indoors

The USA recurve junior men’s team, Ukraine’s recurve junior women’s team, Canada’s compound junior men’s team and Italy’s compound junior women’s team secured bronzes, and the first medals awarded at the World Archery Indoor Championships on Saturday morning in Yankton.

All junior gold medal matches will be held on Sunday morning.

Recurve junior men’s team

Adam Heidt, Trenton Cowles and Seth McWherter from the USA met Russian men Buianto Tsyrendorzhiev, Sandan Namsaraev and Erdem Irdyneev for a shot at bronze in Yankton.

The year’s host world indoor nation scored a pair of 58 and 57, over Russia’s pair of 57 and a 54, to take the match, 5-1 – and claim the first official medal awarded over the juniors field.

“It was really exciting. I know we all worked very hard for this and it’s really nice to see the pay-off,” said Adam.

Recurve junior women’s team

Fourth seed Ukraine, represented by Orysia Didych, Kateryna Mazorchuk and Zhanna Naumova beat Valentina Vazquez, Alexa Rivera and Sandra Vanessa Garza from Mexico in a five-set match for the bronze.

“It was a hard but very interesting match at the same time. We had a good team and we tried as hard as we can to win,” said Kateryna, smiling at her teammates.

Before meeting Mexico, Ukraine first beat the USA in the quarters and then lost to Russia in straight sets, 6-0, in the semis.

Compound junior men’s team

After losing to Australia in a shoot-off in the semis, Austin Taylor, Tristan Spicer-Moran and Cole Beres from Canada beat Denmark by one point, 232-231, to secure compound junior men’s bronze.

The Canadian men were behind by one over the first three ends. Then, in the fourth end, they scored five 10s and one nine against Denmark’s trio each of 10s and nines to take the win.

“It was good and stressful, but that’s normal, I guess. We shot well and we pulled it all together at the end which is the best we could ask for,” said Cole.

“We were down for most of the match, so all we were thinking was about putting the next arrow in the middle and not about the score at all. It was a good comeback.”

Compound junior women’s team

Elisa Roner, Sara Ret and Elisa Bazzichetto of Italy beat Great Britain’s Layla Annison, Ella Gibson and Bayley Sargeant by two, 233-231, to collect the compound junior women’s team bronze.

“We were leading, then lost our advantage and then came from behind to win the match. Knowing we were losing pushed us harder to shoot stronger shots and win,” said Elisa, who also shoots for gold individually.

The Italian trio opened the match with a perfect 60, then a 59 in the second before dropping five in the third, which Britain’s girls used to take a one-point lead. It wasn’t enough, though.

Italy, coming from behind, landed another 59 against Great Britain’s 56 to secure the medal.

“I think we are a great team and we shot very well today. We love this team, I love my teammates,” said Sara, who switched from recurve to compound two years ago after winning gold with the recurve junior women’s team in Ankara 2016.

The 2018 World Archery Indoor Championships takes place in Yankton, USA on 14-19 February.