Youth team impresses during opening pro league games in Chinese Taipei

The first games in Chinese Taipei’s new professional archery league took place on 31 March 2019. JSL faced Tainan, Taichung Bank matched up with Caesar Park Hotel, and the team from My Humble House shot against Chinese Taipei’s national youth squad.

Despite a recent injury, top women’s draftee Tan Ya-Ting was the co-author of one of the most impressive matches of the event.

She and teammate Deng Yu-Cheng, shooting for JSL, beat Tainan’s mixed team, 6-0, and only dropped two arrows out of the 10 in the process. Deng shot a perfect 60 points, Tan 58.

“Despite my international experience, I still felt nervous and excited about this opening game because I’ve only just recovered from my injury,” said Tan.

“I’ve just tried to think positively and will do my best, rather than get frustrated.”

It is unsure whether Tan, who is the world’s number four ranked recurve woman, will shoot at the Hyundai World Archery Championships in 2019 as she is currently the fourth archer and reserve for the national team. (Three athletes attend the worlds.)

The depth in Chinese Taipei’s international archers has long been impressive – and that looks to continue as the only non-company-sponsored team, the federation’s elite youth squad, collected the most points at the first event.

Each game between two teams in the league consists of five matches.

The squads shoot one each of a recurve men’s and women’s team and individual matches plus a mixed team contest – and all eight archers (four men, four women) have to shoot. The set points in each match accrue towards a league ranking and decide which teams contest the league final in each division.

Chinese Taipei’s youth team had 27 points after beating My Humble House in four of the five matches. The national squad only lost its recurve men’s team match in a shoot-off. My Humble House, whose archers include Wei Chun-Heng, only picked up eight points.

Caesar Park scored 26 points, again with four wins and a shoot-off loss – in the recurve men’s event – over Taichung Bank, which accrued 20 total points.

Tainan, 20 points, won three matches to JSL’s two. JSL collected 18 points.

The tournament was opened by former international archer Kuo Cheng-Wei who recently retired and is coaching the My Humble House pro team for the 2019 season.

Chinese Taipei’s new league follows a professional structure with company teams contracting archers following the draft in early March. Companies have signed a commitment to invest in the growth of the league, which features both high-profile archers from the national team and up-and-coming athletes.

The next games in the pro league take place on 5 April at the national sports university archery field, where the finals of the Universiade in 2017 were held.

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