Chinese Taipei takes 2nd consecutive tour team title

Chinese Taipei’s Tan Ya-Ting, Le Chien-Ying and Peng Chia-Mao beat Olympic Champion and top-seeded Korea to the Salt Lake City recurve women’s team gold in a four set final at the third stage of the 2017 Hyundai Archery World Cup circuit.

It was the teams second consecutive win after Antalya.

“The big encouragement we got after our last gold medal in Antalya helped us to continue getting stronger and to get here better results than in Antalya in terms of scores, performances and skills,” said Tan. 

“These two gold medals are a big achievement for us and give us a lot of confidence.”

Leading 4-0 after two sets, Chinese Taipei watched Chang Hye Jin open Korea’s salvo with a five and looked in strong shape to take the match in three. While Tan put her second arrow of the series in the six, the scores were still tied at 50-each at the end of the set, which would give Chinese Taipei the win.

But at the target, the judge upgraded Chang’s arrow to a six – it broke the line – and Korea, somehow, took the set.

With Ki Bo Bae suffering from an illness, and her ability to take to the field for the final in doubt until the last minute, Korea shot its best set score of the match – a 54 – which Chinese Taipei casually matched to take gold, 5-1.

“We were not affected by the issue. After knowing we didn’t win the match at that point, we continued doing what we needed to do, shooting each arrow step by step and giving our best to get good results,” said Peng.

Chinese Taipei’s recurve men also shot for gold in Salt Lake, but came up short against Russia. Opener Peng Shih-Cheng averaged just 7.3 points an arrow, and his team couldn’t pick up the slack.

Russia took gold, 5-1.

China and Malaysia took the recurve women’s and men’s team bronze medals, each beating Mexico in their respective finals matches.

The third stage of the 2017 Hyundai Archery World Cup runs 20 to 25 June in Salt Lake City, USA.

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