Dramatic comebacks mark archery's first day of quarterfinals

World Archery had also the pleasure to welcome Lord Seb COE, Chairman of the London 2012 Organising Committee, in the tribunes.   Recurve Men Standing Following his Paralympic record success in the ranking round, Great Britain's Kenny ALLEN had a disappointing morning, losing 6-4 in his elimination match against Zafer KORKMAZ of Turkey. Three Russian's were in action; No.1 ranked Timur TUCHINOV, Oleg SHESTAKOV and Mikhail OYUN, all of whom had winning performances and survived to shoot another day in the biggest-ever Paralympic archery competition.   Phil BOTTOMLEY (GBR) was third in the ranking round and victory seemed within his grasp in the eliminations but a very high arrow, landing at the top of the one point ring, put an end to his Paralympic dream and gave Oguzhan POLAT (TUR) the win. Eric BENNETT (USA) had possibly the biggest comeback of the tournament so far, managing to equalise after being 5-1 down to Joel PERROT (FRA). It all came down to a shoot off, in which BENNETT prevailed.   Recurve Men W1/W2 World No.3 and ranking round No.1 TSENG Hu Lungi (TPE) had a tight match with Great Britain's Paul BROWNE, going 4-0 behind before storming back to take the match 6-4. Italy's Oscar DE PELLEGRIN and SANAWI Hasihin (MAS) both beat Koreans, LEE Myeong-Gu and JUNG Young, respectively. The all-Iranian encounter between Ebrahim RANJBARKIVAJ and Roham SHAHABIPOUR was a one-sided affair with RANJBARKIVAJ winning 7-1.   Recurve Women Standing Beijing silver medalist GAO Fangxia (CHN) continued her excellent form from the ranking round, where she took top spot. GAO beat Brigitte DUBOC (FRA) to join teammate YAN Huilian in the quarterfinals. The Great Britain pair of Sharon VENNARD and Leigh WALMSLEY had differing fortunes. VERNARD had a 6-2 win over Oyun-Erdene BUYANJARGAL (MGL) to move into the top eight, while WALMSLEY, after a good start, lost 7-1 to Milena OLSZEWSKA (POL).   Recurve Women W1/W2 Iran's success continued with Zahra NEMATI defeating Gizem GIRISMEN (TUR) in straight sets to get into the top four. The much-favoured Turkey archer Hatice BAYAR lost to a very strong Veronica FLORENO (ITA). Even though Marketa SIDKOVA (CZE) had two misses, her arrows that hit the target were so good the match went all the way to a shoot-off which LI Jinzhi (CHN) won.   Compound Men W1 It took a one-arrow shoot-off to keep defending champion and world No.1 David DRAHONINSKY (CZE) in the competition. Fabio AZZOLINI (ITA) took the match to the wire but could not match DRAHONISKY in the one-shot climax. Finland could have hoped for a better draw but Jean-Pierre ANTONIOS and Osmo KINNUNEN met in a very closely fought quarterfinal. In the end it was KINNUNEN who came out on top 6-4.   Norbert MURPHY (CAN) and Jeff FABRY (USA) finished the day with some impressive shooting that their opponents seemed to have no answer to. MURPHY beat Peter KINIK (SVK) 6-0 and FABRY forced the exit of the home-crowd favourite John CAVANAGH (GBR), winning 7-1.   Source: PNS Edited by World Archery Communication