Chinese Taipei shoots perfect tiebreaker to beat Mexico

Chinese Taipei shot a perfect 10, 10, 10 in a shoot-off to beat Mexico to recurve women’s team gold at stage three of the 2018 Hyundai Archery World Cup in Salt Lake City, USA.

“We tried to focus on our ourselves as much as possible and on what we needed to, which was shooting better scores than Mexico,” said Peng Chia-Mao.

Chinese Taipei jumped to a 4-0 lead before Mexico, the silver medallists at the last World Archery Championships, upped their game to win the back two and force the tiebreaker.

“When we realised that Mexico was getting used to the conditions, we knew we needed to improve and stay atop of them,” said Tan Ya-Ting.

Peng, Tan and team leader Lei Chien-Ying closed in on the middle, shooting three consecutive 10s – against Mexico’s 22 – to leave no doubt as to the outcome of the match.

Chinese Taipei arrived in Salt Lake City one week early to train at the tournament venue.

“It helped us understand and get used to shooting in the wind a lot more. It still changes from day to day, hour to hour, but at least we knew what to expect,” said Lei.

“We weren’t worried about it during competition.”

Chinese Taipei took silver at the opening stage of the Hyundai Archery World Cup circuit, bronze at stage two – and now gold at the third leg.

Japan beat hosts USA in three sets, 5-1, to the recurve women’s team bronze medal. The USA had an opportunity to recover in the third but a pair of sevens in the last rotation 

The third stage of the Hyundai Archery World Cup takes place in Salt Lake City, USA on 18-24 June.