Bangkok 2016: 10 things you need to know

The international indoor circuit began in Marrakesh in November. The next stop on the tour sees some of the world’s top archery athletes travel to Bangkok, Thailand for the Asian stage – and the last event of the year.

Here are 10 things you need to know about Bangkok 2016…

1. Schedule

The Indoor Archery World Cup stage in Bangkok lasts two days.

Saturday 10 December: Three qualification sessions. Compound men, followed by recurve and compound women, then recurve men.

Sunday 11 December: Eliminations and finals. Gold and bronze medal matches begin at 14h00 local time.

A para and youth archery competition takes place in the same competition hall on 12 December.

2. Lone rangers

Single athletes from Croatia, Denmark, Spain, Finland, Indonesia, Laos, Netherlands, South Africa and Turkey have made the trip to Thailand for the event.

A total of 332 athletes from 29 countries are registered, the largest total at the leg to date.

3. 598

At the first stage in Marrakesh, Brady Ellison shot a new world record for the ranking round of 598 out of a possible 600 points. It broke a 15-year-old world-best mark by a point.

One week later, in the World Archery Excellence Centre, Olympic Champion Ku Bonchan – at his first indoor event – matched it, missing the 10 with his third-to-last arrow by less than a millimetre.

Ku’s in Bangkok, Brady’s not.

4. Olympic Champions…

Ku is also one of four individual Olympic Champions competing in Thailand. He and London 2012 winner Oh Jin Hyek represent Korean pro team Hyundai Steel, while Rio 2016 women’s winner Chang Hye Jin is in Bangkok as part of Team LH.

Incredibly, Yun Mi Jin – who ranked #5 on our top Olympic athletes of all-time before Rio 2016 and who won double gold at Sydney 2000 and team gold in Athens – is representing Hyundai Department Store in Bangkok.

There’s two Olympic team gold medallists on the various Korean coaching staffs, too: Oh Kyo-Moon and Lee Eun Kyung.

5. …Paralympic Podiums

Ebrahim Ranjbarkivaj and Jonathon Milne, of Paralympic medal fame, also made the trip to Thailand.

Iran’s Ranjbarkivaj was third in the recurve men’s open individual event and took silver with Zahra Nemati in the mixed team. Milne, from Australia, finished third in the compound men’s open competition.

6. Goncharova

Sofia Goncharova won the compound women’s event at the first ever outdoor Archery World Cup Final in Merida in 2006. She’s been off the circuit for seven years, though. The last time we saw her shoot an international was in 2009, when she competed at the outdoor legs in Porec and Shanghai.

Having had two children, she’s on the line in Bangkok and said “she’s ready to shoot again”.

Her family has taken two months holiday in Thailand, to escape the cold weather in St Petersburg, and Sofia took the opportunity to attend the competition. When asked what we can expect, she replied: “I’m just starting.”

7. Ranking leaders?

The only winner – and Indoor Archery World Cup rankings leader – in Marrakesh to attend stage two is Danelle Wentzel, a compound woman from South Africa. Mike Schloesser, who was second in Morocco, also made the trip.

Both the recurve top-10s are guaranteed to receive a shake-up.

8. Chinese clubs

Forty-percent of the archers competing in Bangkok hail from China. Many come from a club in Shanghai. The Indoor Archery World Cup is open entry, meaning any archer affiliated to a World Archery national member archery association can register and compete against the world’s best.

9. Korea’s company teams

Each year, more and more of Korea’s company teams send representatives to compete on the Indoor Archery World Cup circuit. We covered the incredible roster of Olympic Champions above, but here are the squads of the five Korean company teams in Bangkok, archer by archer:

LH

• Chang Hye Jin – recurve woman (OC)
• Ju Hyebhin – recurve woman
• Kim Hyejin – recurve woman
• Park Sehui – recurve woman (wR)

Hyundai Steel

• Choi Yonghee – compound man
• Gye Dong Hyun – recurve man
• Im Ji Wan – recurve man
• Kim Ju Wan – recurve man
• Kim Taeyoon – compound man
• Ku Bonchan – recurve man (OC)
• Oh Jin Hyek – recurve man (OC)
• Sung Ho Hong – compound man

Hyundai Mobis

• Jin Yun – recurve woman
• Kim Eun Jung – recurve woman
• Kim Minjung – recurve woman
• Sim Yeji – recurve woman
• So Chae Won – compound woman
• Song Yun Soo – compound woman

Hyundai Department Store

• Jeon Hunyoung – recurve woman
• Jung Dasomi – recurve woman
• Kim Heeseun – recurve woman
• Song Yijung – recurve woman
• Yun Mi Jin – recurve woman (OC, WR)

Ulsan Nam-Gu

• Choi Eun-Kye – compound man
• Jung Sungwon – recurve man
• Kim Hyeonju – compound woman
• Kim Jae Hyeong – recurve man
• Kwon Seungeon – recurve man
• Lee Jongyoung – recurve man
• Oh Jieun – compound woman

10. Podium

Last year’s gold medallists in Bangkok:

• BRADY ELLISON, USA  – recurve man
• AIDA ROMAN, Mexico  – recurve woman
• REO WILDE, USA  – compound man
• TOJA ELLISON, Slovenia  – compound woman

This year? Tune in to results on www.worldarchery.org and coverage on World Archery’s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages. Footage from Bangkok will be released following the event.

The second stage of the 2016/17 Indoor Archery World Cup runs 10/11 December 2016 in Bangkok, Thailand.