8 takeaways: Eliminations at Nimes 2017

The third stage of the 2016/17 Indoor Archery World Cup in Nimes, France kicked off the archery year – with nearly 1,000 archers from over 40 countries descending on the historical town.

After four ranking rounds split over two days – two Friday, two Saturday – the competition fields all cut to 32, who then are quickly whittled down to the final fours in four phases of elimination matchplay.

Three of the four main competition disciplines – compound and recurve, men and women – had the same top-32 cut score as one year previously. One, the recurve women, dipped a little compared to 2016.

• Recurve men: 575 (+0)
• Recurve women: 551 (-7)
• Compound men: 589 (+0)
• Compound women: 573 (+0)

Sixteenth seed Naomi Folkard ran through two top-seeded Korean recurve women en route to a finals match. Top seed Park Sehui, who is also the world record holder for the 18-metre round, fell first – then Kim Eun Jung, ranked eight, second.

The four-time Olympian from Britain then had her third Korean archer in a row in the quarterfinals, Jin Yun. Jin missed one 10 in four ends to take the match – and make the gold final – 6-2.

In the top of the compound men’s bracket, #17 Paul Tedford upset top seed Mike Schloesser in the second round. It broke that half of the draw, then he was dispatched in the quarterfinals by France’s Jean-Philippe Boulch, who was in turn beaten by 2001 World Archery Champion Dejan Sitar.

Sitar, who shoots against reigning World Archery Champion Stephan Hansen for gold, upset four-seed Pim van de Ven to spring himself into the finals.

JC Valladont. Rio 2016 Olympic runner-up – and Nimes local. A return to the competition field after taking things slow in the back end of the last year brought a third seeding at his local competition – JC shoots for the club of Nimes – and saw him shoot 12 perfect sets through four matches to make the gold final.

The perfect setting – and time – for Valladont to shoot for gold.

Through 64 senior compound matches there were just five perfect scores: one shot by a woman, four by men.

• SO CHAE WON, 2R
• MIKE SCHLOESSER, 1R
• MICHELE NENCIONI, 1R
• JESSE BROADWATER, 1R
• STEPHAN HANSEN, QF

One of the most exciting matches of the eliminations was London 2012 Olympic Champion Oh Jin Hyek’s semifinal clash with Rio 2016 bronze medallist Brady Ellison.

The pair split the first, second, third, fourth… and fifth sets, matching each other arrow for arrow and sending the content to a shoot-off. Brady shot first, a 10, Oh second and a better 10. Brady started his campaign in Nimes 2017 by upping his own world record by a point – but Oh shoots for gold.

Some assorted early-round upsets that shaped the brackets:

• MICHELE FRANGILLI (24) over KIM JOO WAN (9), 6-4, 1R
• ZACH GARRETT (28) over KU BONCHAN (5), 7-1, 1R
• RANDI DEGN (15) over SIM YEJI (2), 7-1, 2R
• SONG YUN SOO (14) over ELIZAVETA KOROLEVA (3), 150-146, 2R
• BRIDGER DEATON (26) over JESSE BROADWATER (10), 148-147, 2R

Defending Indoor Archery World Cup Champion Sarah Sonnichsen, who qualified just 20th in the compound women’s event at Nimes 2017, shot matches of 148, 147 and 149 points to make the semifinals – where she was beaten by a point by another Danish archer, Tanja Jensen.

Jensen and Sonnichsen shot against each other in the final of the World Archery Youth Championships in 2015. Jensen won that one, too. 

The third stage of the 2016/17 Indoor Archery World Cup runs 20-22 January 2017 in Nimes, France.