Denmark prepares to host world’s best archers

The 32-archer line-up features Rio 2016 Olympic Champion Ku Bonchan, the most successful athlete in Hyundai Archery World Cup history Brady Ellison and host-nation hero Sarah Holst Sonnichsen.

Archers qualified for the Final by accumulating points at three stages in 2016, held in Shanghai, China, Medellin, Colombia and Antalya, Turkey.

The top seven ranked athletes in each division – recurve and compound, men and women – received tickets to the finale, with Denmark nominating four individual archers to represent the host’s interests. Danish mixed teams will also shoot against top-ranked pairs from the rest of the world, recurve archers from Korea and Colombian compound athletes.

Compound athletes compete on Saturday 24 September, recurve athletes on Sunday 25 September.

Denmark has hosted international archery events before.

The 2009 Hyundai Archery World Cup Final was held on Nyhavn Canal in Copenhagen and the nation’s capital was the venue for the 2015 World Archery Championships, the primary qualifier for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.

In 2016, the birthplace of famous author Hans Christian Andersen, the city of Odense, welcomes international archery, with a competition held in King’s Park in front of the city’s Palace.

The Hyundai Archery World Cup Final will be broadcasts live or delayed on Eurosport, the new Olympic Channel and on select networks in key global territories.

World Archery President Prof Dr Ugur Erdener: “Denmark has proven itself more than capable of delivering the highest class of international archery events. The Hyundai Archery World Cup Final has proven itself an excellent event to show off iconic locations like the Eiffel Tower in Paris and Bosphorus in Istanbul.”

“In 2016, against another dramatic, historical and beautiful backdrop, the event will once again showcase the best of archery, as the world’s best athletes write their very own sporting fairytales at the finale of archery’s elite competition circuit.”

Sport Event Denmark CEO Lars Lundov said: “Denmark has hosted world-class archery events with much success, crowned with the World Archery Championships last year in Copenhagen.”

“This year the World Cup Final will be staged in Odense, the birthplace of famous storyteller Hans Christian Andersen. The Hyundai Archery World Cup Final will thus once again bring some of the world’s best athletes to Denmark to write their very own fairytales, these of sporting excellence.”

Odense City Mayor Anker Boye said: “Right here in the center of Hans Christian Andersen’s hometown Odense, we look forward to welcoming the world’s best archers.”

“The solid partnership between Archery Denmark, Sport Event Denmark and Sport Event Fyn will make sure that both archers and audience will have a memorable experience and since Odense is transforming into a modern city we are excited to host a sports event that gives us great possibilities for activating schoolchildren from the entire island as well as our strong robotics cluster.”