Olympic archery athletes preview: #5 Oceania

Read the rest of our regional roster previews:

Continent: #5 Oceania

Number of athletes: 7

Number of nations: 3

Number of first-time nations: 0

The One-to-beat

Australia has the strongest pedigree of all Oceanic nations – and has four athletes competing in Rio, up from one in 2012. The team hasn’t medalled in quite some time, but has the potential to do so.

Two of the three have shot 680+ for the ranking round, and the third hasn’t been far off.

The story

Fijian Robert Elder has a third shot at an Olympic campaign, having competed in Athens and London already. He’s still searching for his first match win. After nearly pulling it off against the number two seed in 2012 – can he go that one arrow further, and that’s all he needed, this time around?

The Nations

A nation-by-nation run-down of the continent’s athletes, history and a target, which – if achieved – would mean a really successful archery competition in Rio. Medal count is taken from the modern era, post-1972.

Australia 

Athletes: Alice Ingley (woman); Alec Potts, Taylor Worth, Ryan Tyack (men)

Olympic record: 2 medals – 1 gold, 1 bronze

Intel: In 2000 at Australia’s home Games in Sydney, Simon Fairweather captured the moment – and the men’s individual gold medal. Four years later, Tim Cuddihy bagged bronze in Athens.

Since then, it was Worth’s performance in London that’s come closest to the podium. He made the last 16 before losing to eventual bronze medallist Dai Xiaoxiang.

Back for a second crack at the Olympics, with first-timers Potts and Tyack, Worth leads an Australian men’s team that’s ranked just 19th in the world – but consists of three archers who have all had individual success.

Ingley would need to make the second round to be the most successful Australian female Olympic archer since 2004. To be the nation’s best-ever, she’d need to threaten Terene Donovan’s ninth spot, achieved back in 1972.

Target: Top four – men, second round – women

Fiji 

Athletes: Robert Elder (man)

Olympic record: 0 medals

Intel: A three-time Olympian with Rio on the books, Elder finished 48th in 2004 and lost in the first round in 2012. But he did put up one of the most memorable fights of the tournament in London.

Shooting against second-seed Kim Bubmin, Elder was 4-0 down before clawing back to level, at 4-4. He needed a 10 to win with his final arrow – and the British crowd (which loves an underdog) was behind him – but he could only manage a six.

No other Fijian has ever competed in archery at the Games.

Target: Second round – men

Tonga 

Athletes: Lusi Tatafu (woman), Arne Jensen (man)

Olympic record: 0 medals

Youth Olympian Lusi and 18-year-old Arne make up over a quarter of the Tongan delegation in Rio. The pair also mark Tonga’s return to the archery competition at the Games after a 12 year hiatus.

Target: 630+ on ranking round

The archery competition at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games starts on the 5 August in the Sambodromo.

Competitions