RICHTER upsets China star at home for first World Cup win

“When I qualified for the final I told myself: okay, you already got your goal, whatever the outcome of the final,” said Elena RICHTER.

Things didn’t look good for the German archer when she shot a grand total of 19 out of 30 points in the first set of her first World Cup stage final.

“The first three shots are always difficult,” said RICHTER. “It’s because the wind conditions are a different on the riverside than on the training field. It’s very difficult to guess where the first few arrows will land on the target.”

She reacted very quickly. 

XU Jing, after winning the first set, went quickly downhill. Shooting in front of a loud and encouraging home crowd, she scored a six in each of the sets that followed.

The win gives RICHTER an early stake in qualification for the Lausanne 2014 Archery World Cup Final.

An interesting aside: XU Jing may have some kind of silver curse. She had team silver at London 2012, individual silver at Belek 2013 – and now silver again!

Aida ROMAN beat first-time finalist Ayano KATO to bronze. The Mexican Olympic silver medallist also picked up the Longines Prize for Precision for the Shanghai stage.

Archery World Cup sponsor Longines added the stage award for the 2014 programme. The highest-scoring archer in a certain division at each stage will collect an exclusive Longines watch. At Shanghai, the recurve women were competing for the prize – and at the next stage in Medellin, it will be the compound women’s turn.

See results from the first 2014 Archery World Cup stage in Shanghai.