Preview: Sydney ready to host first Southern Hemisphere major indoor event

It’s the height of summer in the Southern Hemisphere right now. While we normally talk about the indoor season being one for winter – Sydney’s hosting its leg of the Indoor Archery World Series in the hotter months.

Respite from the cold is one reason to head indoors, and respite from the heat another!

Australia has been in the news a lot recently. The country is suffering some of the worst bushfires in memory. They’re an annual occurrence but this year the damage has been awful. Here’s hoping things improve quickly.

Meanwhile, Sydney is making history.

Australia hasn’t hosted a major international archery event at the world level since the Olympic Games in 2000, which were also in Sydney. And it comes not long after Perth was awarded the 2021 World Archery Youth Championships.

The Sydney Indoor Archery Festival is the fourth and last 250-level event. After this, we’re on to 1000 stages at the Nimes Archery Tournament and The Vegas Shoot. The Indoor Archery World Series Finals take place on 8 February in Vegas, too.

Event details

• Event: Sydney Indoor Archery Festival
• Venue: Whitlam Sports Centre, Sydney, Australia
• Dates: 10-12 January 2020
• Numbers: 311 archers; 145 in championship categories (50 recurve men, 23 recurve women, 60 compound men, 12 compound women)
• Points: 250 (top 16 score)
• Format: 60-arrow 18-metre ranking round followed by matchplay bracket

Coverage

News and pictures on www.worldarchery.sport and across World Archery’s social networks over the weekend. No video footage available.

Notes

Two-thirds of the championship category competitors in Sydney are from the host country, Australia. That’s not to say they haven’t travelled a long way. The island is the same width as Europe.

Reigning Indoor Archery World Series Champion Sim Yeji has made the trip to Sydney – and curiously alone, not with her Korean professional team. She shoots for Hyundai Mobis and finished fourth at the Roma Archery Trophy.

Other names of note at this tournament: two-time Paralympic Champion Zahra Nemati, Chinese Taipei compound woman Chen Yi-Hsuan and the bronze-medal-winning team from the last Olympics: Taylor Worth, Ryan Tyack and Alec Potts.

Schedule

Friday 10 January: Practice.

Saturday 11 January: Qualification (two sessions) and early eliminations.

Sunday 12 January: Secondary tournament, eliminations and finals.

One to watch

The compound women’s competition has been excellent already this year, with the world record for the ranking round broken at two consecutive events in Luxembourg and Macau.

Next in line for a major performance is Paige Pearce. The runner-up at the Hyundai World Archery Championships in 2019 took silver and bronze medals at those events – but, as the world number three and the clear favourite in Sydney, has little pressure.

Her biggest result could come in qualification. There’s a good chance she’ll be at the top of the Indoor Archery World Series elite rankings after the weekend.

The fourth event of the 2020 Indoor Archery World Series is the Sydney Indoor Archery Festival on Friday 10 to Sunday 12 January 2020.