South Africa guaranteed an Antalya mixed team medal

The top-seeded compound pair from Colombia came up against returning and reigning World Champion Kristina HEIGENHAUSER’s Germany in the first round of the Antalya mixed team eliminations. 

The Germans shot 12 straight 10s to start the match and put themselves three points up with four arrows left to shoot. It wouldn’t be a perfect performance – they dropped three into the nine in the last end – but it was a pretty good one. 

Sixteenth ranked Germany won by a point. 

The pair would beat Mexico in the quarters before losing steam against an in-form Denmark by three in the semis. 

On the other side of the bracket, Reo WILDE’s second-ranked USA would be eliminated by Italy in the first round, throwing open the entire head-to-head to the lower seeds.

South Africa had already shot the highest score of the matches in the first round at 158, then slipped past Italy by a point in the quarters and dispatched Slovenia by four in the semis. The smooth sail secured the nation its first outdoor international archery medal and final since the Belek 2013 World Archery Championships, when its compound men’s team collected silver.

“I shot against South Africa a couple of years ago and although we don’t get to see them often we know who they are, we know how good they are,” said Stephan HANSEN, one half of the Danish mixed team destined to face the South African pair in the final. 

“It’s maybe a bad thing for us. They are not so used to being in competition so can shoot more freely.” 

Gabriel BADENHORST did nothing to dissuade that notion when he admitted he felt more relaxed shooting in the mixed team with Jeanine VAN KRADENBURG

“I told her it wasn’t so important for me,” said Gabriel. “So just do your best and enjoy, and by doing that we actually did really well.” 

It was the first time he and VAN KRADENBURG had shot together in the pairs event.

“On Saturday, it will just be really nice to shoot for gold as we only attend two events a year as it is difficult for us to travel often from South Africa. We will just enjoy and take all the pressure off.” 

If the compound mixed team was all Europe and Africa, Asia dominated the recurve competition. 

KIM Woojin and CHOI Misun beat Japan in the semifinals, a replay and repeat result of the gold medal match in Shanghai. The Korean pair shot a pair of perfect 40s in the middle sets to put themselves ahead and only dropped three points on 16 arrows in total. 

China failed to medal at its host stage to start the season, but beating Chinese Taipei in the other recurve semifinal secured silver, at least, and a chance at Korea and gold in the final.

Read more about Antalya 2015.

 

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