ELLISON gets another victory in Amsterdam

ELLISON gets another victory in Amsterdam Amsterdam - 28 November 2010   The 2010 World Cup Final Winner Brady ELLISON (USA) won the Face 2 Face Amsterdam tournament. Youth Olympian bronze medallist Tatiana SEGINA (RUS) also added a line on her resume. Ivana BUDEN (CRO) won in compound women and a new star emerged in compound men, Mike SCHLOESSER (NED)!   The 10th edition of the Face 2 Face Indoor Tournament took place from 26-28 November in Amsterdam. The tournament has taken place every two years recently; Eindhoven hosted the first five editions and Amsterdam the last five. It has enjoyed a nice growth with 130 participants from 13 countries in 2004, 250 archers from 29 countries in 2008 and a maximum of 288 athletes from 33 countries this year. It has an interesting format that the archers appreciate very much. The competition is a succession of Round Robins with group of six archers until the semifinals. Each athlete plays a 12-arrow match against all the other archers in a group—earning two points for a win, one point for a tie. The top two archers per group go through to the next round. A number of athletes also advances as "lucky losers" based on the number of total arrow points they have scored during the matches. The competitive field is successively reduced from 96 archers to 48, 24, 12 and 4. This system allows to play a lot of matches and shoot a lot of arrows. The top four archers then play head-to-head semifinals and finals based on a set system: best of 7 sets of 3 arrows with each set being broken in case of a tie by one arrow closest to centre. Hence each set is worth one point and the athletes must earn 4 points to win the match.   After the Round Robins on Friday and Saturday, some big archery names made it to Sunday's showdown: Brady ELLISON and Vic WUNDERLE (USA), Magnus PETERSSON (SWE), Justyna MOSPINEK (POL), Tatiana SEGINA (RUS), Dave COUSINS (USA), Peter ELZINGA (NED), Albina LOGINOVA (RUS), Ivana BUDEN and Erika ANSCHUTZ (USA). Let’s have a closer look on the final for bronze and gold.   Recurve Men The young star and winner of the 2010 World Cup Final in Edinburgh Brady ELLISON (USA) shot against the everlasting Magnus PETERSSON (SWE), who, among other feats, earned the individual silver medal at the 1996 Olympic Games. He won this tournament in 1995 and 1996 and after two years of retirement, he decided to pick up his bow again! Both archers started with a perfect 30, hence they had to shoot a one-arrow shoot-off to break the first set. Both archers shot another 10, but PETERSSON was closest to centre and won the point of the first set. Then both archers shot another perfect 30! Brady shot a 10 in the shoot-off and Magnus a 9. The match score was levelled at 1-1. Then both archers shot 29 points; another shoot-off! And both archers shot a superb X10, ELLISON being one millimetre closer to the centre. "Guess what!?" said the PA Announcer after the fourth set. "It is a perfect 30 again for both shooters and another shoot-off!" Another 10 for both archers and ELLISON was slightly closer to the centre again. He led 3-1. "Guess what!?" said the PA Announcer again after the fifth set. "Two perfect 30s and it is a shoot-off!" Magnus let a 9 go, Brady did not lose his chance to score another 10 and clinch gold, 4-1! It was a total of 17 arrows in the 10-ring for and three in the 9-ring for PETERSSON. ELISSON scored 19 arrows in the 10 for only one 9!!!!   Frank FISSEUX (FRA) dominated Vic WUNDERLE (USA) 4-1 for the bronze.   Recurve Women Youth Olympic bronze medallist in Singapore, Tatiana SEGINA (RUS) was solid in the final. Shooting sets of 29, 29, 29, 28 and 29, she won gold 4-1 against local favourite Coby HURKMANS (NED)!     Carina CHRISTIANSEN (DEN) beat Justyna MOSPINEK (POL) for bronze 4 set points to 3. The match was a rollercoaster between the two athletes. They both took the lead one after the other shooting many perfect scores. CHRISTIANSEN finally won the last set 29-28.   Compound Men At 16 years old Mike SCHLOESSER (NED) is the Cadet FITA Round world record holder. He met his teammate and (elite) FITA Round world record holder Peter ELZINGA (NED) in the final for the great pleasure of the Dutch fans! SCHLOESSER got over none the less than Martin DAMSBO (DEN) in the last Round Robin yesterday (actually both archers shot a perfect score against one another) and Dave COUNSINS (USA) in the semifinal. Against the American SCHLOESSER won four tie-breaks, shooting 10 in each of them! SCHLOESSER continued with the same fashion in the final: he won the first set in the shoot-off! ELZINGA tied it at 1-1 after a perfect second set; however SCHLOESSER displayed nerves of steel for the reminder of the match. He scored perfect 30 points in the third, fourth (scoring another 10 in a shoot-off) and finally the fifth set. He earned gold on the score of 4-1! What a victory for the 16 years old!   Dave COUSINS (USA) and Morten BOE (NOR) took it to the limit for bronze—a shoot-off in the seventh set. COUSINS led 2 sets to 0, then 3-2, but BOE tied the match at 3-3 after a shoot-off in the sixth set. The American could actually have clinched the match in the sixth or seventh set if he would have shot a 10 with his last arrow. However, here they were, at a decisive shoot-off to finish the match. BOE shot a very solid 10. COUSINS also shot a 10! The judge decided that he was closest to centre, bronze for COUSINS!   Compound Women Ivana BUDEN (CRO) defeated the current world champion and World Cup final holder Albina LOGINOVA (RUS) in the final. BUDEN was solid with 29, 29, 29 and 28 to win the match 4-0.     Erika ANSCHUTZ (USA) took the first set of the bronze medal match. However her teammate and opponent Christie COLLINS then shot four 30 points in a row to clinch the match 4-2!   All results and more info on www.face2face-archery.org    Congratulations to the organisers for a well-managed tournament and to the athletes for a great show. For sure Amsterdam will keep seeing the top faces in archery!   Didier MIEVILLE World Archery Communication