Koreans into recurve team finals – will face Japan, Germany

The epitome of consistency, Germany’s recurve women took advantage of a weak three set series from the USA to clinch a semifinal victory that set them up for the nation’s first gold final of the year. 

Germany won recurve women’s gold at the second stage of the Archery World Cup last year. This season, that match came a little earlier. 

“It’s been the first day we’ve had to wake up in the morning,” said a smiling Karina WINTER.

The women had qualification in the afternoon, and then Karina had a top-eight bye so did not have an elimination match until after lunchtime. 

She revealed an interesting piece of information about the team strategy during their morning eliminations - the order the trio shoot in is based on the order they qualify in the ranking round. 

It goes against some teams, who choose a particularly reliable or the most confident archer to go last, but it seemed to work. 

Readying themselves for the gold medal clash against Korea, expectations were tempered. 

“We’ll just have a lot of fun, shoot strong shots and use it as preparation for the worlds, and hopefully the Olympics as well. Who knows!” 

The Japanese women will shoot against the USA for recurve women’s bronze. 

Japan’s men will go for gold. 

The seventh seeds raised their game in the quarterfinals to beat a second-seeded USA team with a pair of well-timed 57-point sets. Sprung into a semi against Spain, who have been surprisingly successful in Shanghai, another two sets made the difference – and the Japanese men were into a final against Korea.

Olympic silver medallist Takaharu FURUKAWA’s team won in Shanghai last year, but last year the Korean men were not here.

This year, they certainly are. And have already won back some turn of pride. 

At last year’s Asian Games, held in Incheon, Korea, the Chinese team beat the hosts in straight sets on their way to the title. It was the first time since 1982 that Korea had not won the Asian Games recurve men’s gold.

In the Shanghai 2015 quarterfinals, Korea dealt a 6-0 victory to the hosts here, China. 

Not absolution, but some semblance of revenge. 

Spain will face Indonesia in the recurve men’s bronze medal match. 

Read more about Shanghai 2015.

 

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