Russia and Korea team Paralympic champion!

The current world champion Russia confirmed their supremacy at the Paralympic level in Recurve Men Team Open, while Korea won the gold in Recurve Women Team Open. Both teams became Paralympic champions for the first time! The teams finished the London 20102 para archery competition at the Royal Artillery Barracks today! They shot the quarterfinals in the morning and followed through with the semifinals and medal matches in the afternoon. The teams have three members of the same gender from any category. Matches are played with 4 ends of 6 arrows with cumulative score. Simply the team with the best score at the end of the 24 arrows wins! Here some live commentaries from the field! Recurve Men Team Open Seeded No. 1, team GBR was back on the field for the first men’s semifinal this afternoon! They played the No. 5 seed, but remaining as always an archery powerhouse, Korea. Great Britain struggled to find the “yellow” in the first end with 7-9-8-7-4-8 for 43 points, while Korea started quite well with 8-8-7-8-10-10 for 51. Great Britain made up some ground in the second end to trail 93-98 at the halfway mark. The Britons started the third end with 7-9-9, while the Koreans had 9-9 and… a 3! This meant the score was at 119-118 for Korea at this point! Both teams finished the end with 25 points; hence the Koreans carried only a 1-point advantage into the last end, 144-143. Great Britain started the last end with 7-9-7 and Korea scored 9-7-10. G-B-R finished with 8-9 and a 7, which did not put too much pressure on the Koreans. They finished well with 9-10-8 and advanced to the gold medal match, 197-190. China was pretty consistent in their start of the second semifinal: 9-9-9-9-9-8 for 53 points. Russian was slightly better: 8-9-9-10-9-9 for 54! Pretty much the same story in the second end: China 9-8-9-8-9-9 to reach a total of 105 points. Russia had more ups and downs but “doubled” their lead with 10-7-10-10-7-9 for 107. The second shooter of China, LI, got into a lot of problems at the beginning of the third end. Twice, he could not release his arrow (had to come down with his bow), thus loosing a lot of time. China had only 41 seconds to shoot their last three arrows, but their anchor (DONG, last shooter) was as cool as a cucumber shooting a 10 when the clock was getting to 0. Still, China lost some ground in this end. They scored 8-9-9-9-6-10, while Russia had 10-10-9-8-8-10 to lead 162-156. China finished with 8-9-8-9-8-9 but definitely did not shoot enough 10s in this match. Russia, whose three members finished 1-2-3 in the individual recurve men standing category earlier this week, scored 9-9-10-8-7-9 (despite TUCHINOV holding a full draw for a long time) and prevailed 214-207. Great Britain had to battle with China for its last chance to add a medal to their archery tally. The British team took a good start leading 52-50 after six arrows and did even better at the beginning of the second end with 10-9-10. However they followed up with 7-3-8, while China finished the second end with 9-9-10. The Chinese athletes just turned over the situation to lead 102-98! The Britons shot first in the third end and scored 7-8-7 with their first three arrows. China scored 9-8-9 to increase the gap. Then BROWNE tried to lead the charge with a 9. He was followed by BOTTOMLEY with a 9, but ALLEN had another 7. CHENG scored 9, LI an 8 and DONG a 10 allowing China to get an “arrow lead” in the match, 155-145. Great Britain finished with 7-7-8-8-8 and a 10 that launched a good cheering from the crowd. China however did not let go, scoring 8-10-8-10-6-9. China won the bronze 206-193! In the gold medal match, the No. 5 seed Korea, double defending Paralympic champion, took the No. 2 Russia, whose three members owned the full podium in the individual standing category. Korea had three archers in wheelchair and that was a good example of why this team event is called “open”. Korea was also world champion in 2005, 2003 and 2001, but Russia got the world title in Turin 2011 when they beat…the Koreans. Moreover, Russia broke twice the team match Paralympic record on their way to the final. They took a small lead after six arrows, 50-48. The Koreans raised up their game a notch in the second end with 9-8-10-9-10-6, but Russia scored 9-9-8-9-9-9 to keep their 2-point lead, 102-100. LEE started the third end with 10, followed by KIM with another 10 and a 9 from JUNG. OYUN scored 9 for Russia, followed by Shestakov with an 8 and TUCHINOV with a 9. At this point Korea had turned the situation over, leading 129-128. However, Korea finished the end with 9-8 and a 4 for 150 points. Russia was more consistent with 9-9-8 for a 154-150 lead. The Koreans finished the match with 9-9-6-8-9-9. That was not enough to defend their title! The Russians scored 8-8-10-8-9-8 to win the match 205-200 and the gold medal! Recurve Women Team Open Italy, who lost against China 187-192 in the semifinal, and Iran, who was defeated by Korea 186-192, seemed quite evenly matched at the start of the bronze medal match. It was also some kind of a rematch between the individual W1/W2 Paralympic champion Zahra NEMATI (IRI) and silver medallist Elisabella MIJNO (ITA). Iran had the best start leading 49-45 after the first end. Italy got a couple of welcomed 10s and 9s in the second end (7-10-8-9-9-10) to reach 98 points and cut their deficit to one point, as Iran shot 8-10-7-10-7-8 for 99 points. Some gusts of wind made the third end tricky, especially for athletes that in principle don’t have the power of able-bodied ones. Italy scored 7-7-5-7-5-9 to reach 138 points. Iran had 9-9-2-9-6-6 and kept the lead with 140 points. Italy scored 9-9-8 for 164 points halfway through the last end, while Iran had 8-7*-9 for also 164 points on the board. Italy finished with 10-9 and…a 1*. Iran took advantage of it with 10-5-8 to win the bronze medal. Finally, the 7* became an 8 for the final score of 188-184 for Iran! The gold medal match was played between China and Korea. These two teams are powerhouse in women archery getting 1-2 places for the last three Olympic Games and most of the world class archery competition—Korea usually climbing ton the highest step. In para archery, China is the defending Paralympic champion won the world championships in 2007 and 2001. Korea was world champion in 2009, 2003 and 2001. Both teams scored 192 in their semifinals. China had however a couple of bad arrows in the first two ends (a 5 and a 6) that seemed to be costly at this level of competitions. China reached 92 points at the halfway match, while Korea scored 102. China made a bit of ground in the third end but kept trailing 141-148. The Chinese athletes scored 8-10-7 to start the last end, and that was matched by Korea with 8-9-8. China finished with 9-10 and 8 almost at the buzzer. Korea scored 8-9-9 to become Paralympic champion with the score of 199-192! While the Korean Olympic women team has won every team title in the history—that means one of the longest streak across all sports in the Olympic history winning the seven titles since 1988, the Korean Paralympic women team just celebrated its first! Thank you the athletes, thank you the game-makers, thank you the fantastic crowds and thank you to everyone who contributed in this amazing paralympic archery competition! World Archery Communication