Preview: 580+ archers to compete in 3rd Indoor World Series event in Rome

Italy is famed for at least three things: Pasta, pizza and… the Romans. Rome, unsurprisingly, has plenty of all three. It also has the TRUBall/Axcel Roma Archery Trophy, which has quickly become a favoured stop on archery’s international open-entry indoor circuit.

(Does that have anything to do with the pasta and the pizza?)

Nearly 600 archers have entered this year’s edition of the Roma Trophy, making it the third-largest event on the 2020 Indoor Archery World Series. The Vegas Shoot will be the biggest, with somewhere between 3500 and 4000 participants, and the Nimes Tournament comes second on around 1000.

Among the names making their indoor season debut in Rome is reigning world-everything Brady Ellison.

Having become World Archery Champion, world number one, world record holder and Hyundai Archery World Cup Champion for a record fifth time in 2019, the 31-year-old took a well-deserved break from international competition. (Even though his wife, Toja, did participate in the GT Open.)

What Brady has achieved this past year is phenomenal. But we all know the big prize is on offer next summer.

Has Ellison planned – uncharacteristically – to take things easy during the winter months before ramping things up towards the business end of the Olympic cycle? Or is he looking to carry his historical levels of performance through the next eight months to Tokyo? Neither will be easy.

Brady and Jack Williams are shooting in a Lancaster Archery Supply team – with Casey Kaufhold – this indoor season. Beiter currently leads the recurve team competition. Lancaster is third.

A group from Mathews joined the compound team event after Luxembourg. Braden Gellenthien, James Lutz and Tanja Jensen have four events to make ground on rankings leaders TRUBall/Axcel, featuring the compound men to take gold at the first two events of the circuit in Mike Schloesser and Kris Schaff.

The TRUBall/Axcel pair will look to extend the team’s winning streak at the TRUBall/Axcel Roma Archery Classic.

Event details

  • Event: TRUBall/Axcel Roma Archery Trophy
  • Venue: Fiera Roma convention centre, Rome, Italy
  • Dates: 14-15 December 2019
  • Numbers: 583 archers; 320 in championship categories (110 recurve men, 38 recurve women, 118 compound men, 54 compound women)
  • Points: 250 (top 16 score)
  • Format: 60-arrow 18-metre ranking round followed by matchplay bracket

Coverage

News and pictures on www.worldarchery.sport and across World Archery’s social networks over the weekend.

Live stream on World Archery’s YouTube channel, Facebook page and Twitter feed starting at 16h15 CET on Sunday 15 December. Live feed will include barebow, compound and recurve gold medal matches.

Notes

The compound women’s indoor ranking round world record is now 596 – and the score has already been shot by two people. Last year, the recurve women’s score had a bump (to 595) and the recurve men’s is one point off perfect. There’s not much room for score improvement across the board but the level at the top keeps rising.

It was only two weeks ago that Kang Chae Young – the current recurve women’s world number one – was collecting her gold medal at the Asian Championships. She’s in Rome as one of a nine-strong team from professional squad Hyundai Mobis.

(Chae Young joined Mobis after leaving her studies at Kyunghee University.)

There are four championship categories at Indoor Archery World Series events – recurve men, recurve women, compound men and compound women – with results counting towards the elite rankings and a chance at the Indoor Archery World Series Finals. But the indoor series is about encouraging mass participation, too.

That’s why it’s so encouraging to see such strong youth and – particularly – barebow entries in Rome. Sixty-eight barebow men and 31 barebow women will take part.

Schedule

Friday 13 December: Practice.

Saturday 14 December: Qualification (three sessions).

Sunday 15 December: Secondary tournament, eliminations and finals. Medal matches start at 14h30 CET (local) and live video at 16h15 CET (local).

One to watch

A moment of celebration for the one to watch we selected for the GT Open in Luxembourg: Ella Gibson took bronze – and broke the world record for the compound women’s indoor ranking round at the start of the weekend with 596/600 points.

Anders Faugstad went from little-known 19-year-old last indoor season to the double-world-championship-finalist 20-year-old he is now. He was runner-up at the Hyundai World Archery Championships and won the Madrid 2019 World Archery Youth Championships.

Competing as a junior at the 2018 Roma Archery Trophy, Faugstad finished third.

Now competing as a senior, can the young Norwegian produce the same kind of performances that gave him such success outdoors, indoors as well?

The third event of the 2020 Indoor Archery World Series is the TRUBAll/Axcel Roma Archery Trophy on Saturday 14 to Sunday 15 December 2019.

People
Competitions