Lopez makes 5th consecutive Shanghai final

Colombia’s best archer, Sara Lopez, has qualified for her fifth consecutive gold medal match at the Shanghai stage of the Hyundai Archery World Cup, having come second in 2014 and winning the tournament in 2015, 2016 and 2017.

She qualified just 24th, but upset ninth-seeded Dane Tanja Jensen and then, in the semifinal, fifth-ranked compound woman So Chaewon.

“Even though I shot really bad in the qualification, I took those bad shots and I worked with my coach to have a good attitude for the matchplay,” said Lopez.

“I did great in the individual matches, so it feels great.”

Lopez will face Chinese Taipei’s Chen Yi-Hsuan in the Shanghai finals arena, which she enters for the fifth consecutive year in 2018.

In 2014, she had an issue with her peepsight and dropped the gold medal match to Korea’s Choi Bomin.

“I shot three misses; I remember that day it was terrible,” Sara recalled.

From 2015 to 2017, she beat Linda Ochoa-Anderson and twice Sarah Sonnichsen to win the opening stage of the circuit, with the first and most recent of those victories opening seasons that ended with her lifting the Hyundai Archery World Cup Final trophy.

(She did also win the circuit in 2014, after the loss to Bomin.)

This season debuts a new rule in which the winner of each stage receives an invitation to the final.

“I can only be in two world cups and this is my chance to qualify for the finals, so I will try my best, I will smile a lot and I will enjoy the competition,” said Lopez.

Korea’s So Chaewon and Jamie van Natta, the second-seeded compound woman in Shanghai who represents the USA, will contest the bronze medal.

The first stage of the Hyundai Archery World Cup takes place in Shanghai, China on 23-29 April.

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