Turkey’s Gazoz takes pole at last World Cup stage

Turkey’s Mete Gazoz scored 677 out of a possible 720 points for the 72-arrow 70-metre ranking round to top recurve men’s qualification at the fourth stage of the 2018 Hyundai Archery World Cup in Berlin, Germany. 

It is Gazoz’s first top seeding on the World Cup circuit.

“There are a lot of famous and big athletes. This is really one of the most important competitions, because it’s the last stage [of the year],” said Gazoz.

“I’m happy to be in the first place because it will give me a big advantage for the eliminations.”

Mete – who recently won the Mediterranean Games in Tarragona and the European Youth Championships in Patras – shot a field-leading second half in Berlin, handling tricky wind better than any other recurve archer.

“We’ve been working really hard to manage this kind of weather, a lot of core training. As soon as I understood the conditions, it was really easy to hit the middle,” he explained.

Korea’s Lee Woo Seok and Im Dong Hyun finished second and third, both on 672 points.

Taylor Worth, Oh Jin Hyek, Wei Chun-Heng, Mauro Nespoli and Sanzhar Mussayev rounded out the top eight. All receive a bye into the third round.

With 136 recurve men competing in Berlin, 32 failed to make the cut for the elimination phase. The 104-place score was 616 and there was a six-way shoot-off for the last three places.

Korea was the top seeded recurve men’s team, ahead of Kazakhstan and Chinese Taipei.

The fourth stage of the 2018 Hyundai Archery World Cup takes place in Berlin, Germany on 16 to 22 July.

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