Max Mandia and Marco Morello set-up all-Italian final at European Indoor Championships

Top recurve men’s seed Max Mandia will face Italian teammate Marco Morello in the final of the 2019 European Indoor Archery Championships in Samsun, Turkey. Mandia was the only archer in the division to hit 590 out of the possible 600 points in qualifying, yet eight archers had 587 or more.

“The level has been higher than past years for sure. You could see that during the Indoor World Series,” he said.

“Indoors is just a state of mind, plus practice, and I’m happy to be in the final again. I will give my all to win it.”

The 29-year-old collected a silver medal at the European indoors in 2015. He had a team silver medal that same year and team gold in 2017.

Mandia survived a shoot-off with Turkish archer Muhammed Guneri in his first match, beat Russia’s Arsalan Baldanov with three perfect sets in the quarterfinals – and then defeated 21st seed Alen Remar of Croatia in the semifinals.

Number 14 seed Morello upset home-favourite Mete Gazoz and 2008 Olympic Champion Viktor Ruban during the eliminations.

“[This is great for Italy], it means we will be on the top of the European podium again after some years,” said Mandia.

Sayana Tsyrempilova of Russia and Ukraine’s Lidiia Sichenikova will contest the recurve women’s title in Samsun.

The compound finals see Dutch world number one Mike Schloesser face Adrien Gontier of France, and Gizem Elmaagacli match-up with the defending compound women’s champion from Russia, Alexandra Savenkova.

Elmaagacli, who qualified top, beat Turkish teammate and world number one Yesim Bostan in the semifinals.

Team finals at the 2019 European Indoor Archery Championships take place on Friday; individual finals take place on Saturday 2 March.

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