World record falls as Libert, Bennett Shelton and Verdeyen go 2 for 2 at masters

The recurve championship events saw day one winners take another gold medal, in the opposite disciplines, as Laura Bennett Shelton of the USA and France’s Eric Libert collected their second World Archery Masters Champion titles in Lausanne.

Tatyana Muntyan made a strong run at the recurve women’s 50+ outdoor title, placing second in qualification behind Swiss Olympian Nathalie Dielen, but fell to Germany’s Eva Weyers in the quarterfinals.

Bennett Shelton, despite qualifying only sixth, ran through her bracket without a problem, setting up a semifinal with top-seeded Dielen – which she won, 7-3. The US archer, who won the first indoor world masters title on the first day in Lausanne, found an even richer seam against Germany’s Petra Nussgens-Patz.

She shot 29, 27 and 25 points in the 60-metre head-to-head final to take the title in straight sets.

“I’m the last person on that line to expect this to happen,” said Laura.

“I’m not a big outdoor shooter. I don’t practise outdoors. I practise indoors. I use exactly the same form. When I was out there I was literally just counting out the steps of my form.”

Her experience in matchplay was a factor. 

“I travel a lot to international tournaments, and I just came from the US national championships. We practise the Olympic rounds,” she said.

“But I wasn’t expecting to go two for two. First of all, I though Natalie was going to have a burning fire in her, and just go out there and set the entire place ablaze and take that gold. And I would have been perfectly happy with that. But it just didn’t play out that way.”

"Matches are anybody’s game. I learned that early on.”

Dielen recovered to beat Wendy Aubrey of Great Britain for the bronze 6-0 and closing with an emphatic arrow in the centre of the 10-ring. 

In the recurve men’s 50+ indoor competition, Eric Libert rode the wave of form that saw him take the outdoor event to win indoors, too, by a huge 28 points.

The 25-metre segment of his combined indoor round – played out over 60 arrows at both 25 and 18 metres – was a world record.

Libert shot 584 points out of a possible 600 to beat the previous mark of 582, set by Vladas Sigauskas in 2017, and set himself up with a large lead that never left his victory in doubt.

Multiple Olympian Vedat Erbay’s 1138-point day came closest to Libert’s 1166, and Erbay took silver. And Eric isn’t finished in Lausanne yet – he competes in the field competition on Saturday, too. 

Luc Verdeyen was the third archer to take a second championship gold medal on the second day of the 2018 world masters, as he and Julia Oleksejenko won the compound 50+ outdoor events down at the Lausanne club field in Vidy.

Belgium’s Verdeyen beat Beyers De Klerk of South Africa in the final; Oleksejenko topped Sherry Gale of Australia, who took a second silver of the tournament.

At the Montheron field course, Slovenian archer Marjan Podrzaj won the championship barebow men 50+ field competition, shooting 307 points for the combined 24-target course to second-placed Rick Stonebraker’s 296.

Sarah Fern of Great Britain scored 215 points and won the barebow women 50+ field event.

There were strong results for Japan in the recurve 40+ outdoor non-championship categories as Keita Kuno and Kaori Mitsuyama took men’s and women’s gold. 

Other non-championship recurve winners included Alberto Cagnazzi (men 60+ indoor), Annunciata Polastri (women 60+ indoor), Jean Paul Breton (men 70+ indoor) and Susan Swain (women 70+ indoor).

Non-championship compound winners on day two included Alexey Bashkirev (men 40-49 indoor), Kerstin Weyand (women 40-49 indoor) and Bruno Herve (men 60+ outdoor).

Barebow, instinctive and longbow archers Eric Pichonnaz, Adam Strachan-Stephens, Susan Palsbo, Kawamura Saburo, Tuvshintugs Damdinsuren, Serge Ballesteros, Jurg Schalpfer, Daniel Stafford, Walter Fritz Ludwig, Ylle Kell and Kurt Nuenlist also took gold medals in the field competitions.

The first World Archery Masters Championships take place on 14-18 August 2018 in Lausanne, Switzerland.