Brady takes Shanghai pole with 3rd highest score ever

“I had a chance at the 700 but I needed 60 in the last end. I had done it three times already but I knew, walking onto the line, that it probably wasn’t going to happen,” said Brady, who posted three 10s and three nines in the last end. “I shot six good shots and walked off the line happy.”

His 697 ranks only behind Im Dong Hyun and Kim Bubmin’s 699 and 698, respectively, scored at the London 2012 Olympic Games.

With the next big dance on the horizon – Rio – Brady is rounding into form. His Shanghai 2016 qualifying performance marks a personal best in competition of nearly 10 points.

And his calm appreciation of what he’d just achieved suggests there’s more to come.

“To shoot 700 you need to shoot every shot well and have some of your okay ones land in the 10 as well. You can’t go below 58. I had a 55 and a 56 here but shot 71 shots well – there’s probably only one arrow I’d like to have back,” he said. “It’s really tough.”

But not impossible.

Sjef van den Berg also posted a personal record in Shanghai, shooting 350 for the back-half of his 72-arrow ranking round. He landed second, 10 points behind Brady, on 687, and two points ahead of Australia’s Alec Potts, who made his senior debut in Shanghai in 2015.

“It’s always more nervewracking when you’re shooting well than when you’re shooting poorly,” said Alec.

“Last year was a feeling-out year for me to get up to the senior level, and kind of learn what it’s all about. I’ve taken what I’ve learned from those earlier years and put it into my training over the past five or six months.”

Rising young Turkish athlete Mete Gazoz ranked fourth.

Team USA, led by Brady and with considerable contributions from Zach Garrett – 672 – and Jacob Wukie on 663, took the top spot in the recurve men’s team qualification. The Netherlands was second and India third.

Only 104 of the 120 men advance to matchplay. The cut for eliminations was 625/720.

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