Nimes 2018: Schedule, favourites and tournament preview

It’s a busy two months to start the year. 

Many of the world’s best have already been to shoots in the USA, there’s Nimes in mid-January and then it’s on to the Lancaster Classic, The Vegas Shoot and the World Archery Indoor Championships.

More popular than ever in 2018, the Indoor Archery World Cup’s stop in Europe – in Nimes, France – is full. 

There are Olympic Champions entered, sponsored pros and a huge number of both competitive and recreational archers throwing their arrows in the ring. 

Last year Tom Hall, now a member of the British squad, made his first-ever world-level final at the tournament (the bronze against Brady Ellison). With a field so deep and so wide, who’ll rise to the Nimes challenge in 2018?

Schedule

19 January: Qualification

20 January: Qualification and eliminations

21 January: Finals

Tournament preview

Utterly full lines at the Indoor Archery World Cup stage in Nimes in 2018, where 1194 archers from 50 countries are entered to compete in the third stage of the winter tour.

Matteo Fissore, Gabriela Bayardo, Mike Schloesser and Paige Pearce-Gore lead the circuit rankings at halfway, but with double the points available in France compared to Marrakesh and Bangkok – this is really the business end of things.

Among the unranked names arriving at stage three is, unusually, Brady Ellison.

He missed stage one when his wife fell ill and stage two after a travel mishap and arrives in Nimes completely out of the race for Vegas – although that will change with a solid finish – and competition fresh.

Is competition fresh a thing for a four-time Hyundai Archery World Cup Champion whose schedule usually includes every single event going?

We’ll find out this weekend. 

Favourites

Individual winners: Stephan Hansen, Paige Pearce-Gore, Ku Bonchan and Lisa Unruh.

Olympic silver medallist and world indoor champion Lisa Unruh just shot a European record with 594 out of a possible 600 points for the indoor ranking round, matching the world record shot in Nimes in 2016 by Park Sehui (not attending this time around).

Talking of big figures, Paige Pearce-Gore’s US trials score, shot as one of a two-part half, of 596 was not ratified as a world record. 

Who’s rooting for her to turn up to France and just post the same mark again? This time it would wrestle the record from compatriot Erika Jones.

Braden Gellenthien and Mike Schloesser both have a stage victory this season; world number one Stephan Hansen’s next.

I started with Olympic, I‘ll finish with Olympic.

Rio 2016 men’s winner Ku Bonchan is back on the international line in Nimes for the first time since Vegas last season, after failing to make the Korean squad for 2017. He’s shot huge indoor scores in the past – and there’s still the big 600 ready, waiting, for any recurve archer to claim.

(Of course, with nearly 1,200 archers in Nimes, these picks could all be just ways off.)

– Chris

The third stage of the 2017/18 Indoor Archery World Cup takes place in Nimes, France on 19-21 January 2018.