Wind and rain for archery at Asian Para Games

Wind and rain for archery at Asian Para Games Guangzhou (CHN) – 15 December 2010   The decision to move all day 2 afternoon matches to the late morning of day 3 at Guangzhou Asian Para Games in Guangzhou, China proved to be a sensible one. On 15 December the day was very overcast with a light breeze and a cool temperature when shooting began at 9:30. By the time the women were originally scheduled to shoot, there was a very strong wind and rain as well.   In the recurve men Standing division, the No. 7 seed Kimimasa ONODERA (JPN) continued his giant killing ways by defeating No. 2 KIM Yong Ok 6-2 in the quarterfinals. But Sakon INKAEWA (THA) ended the Japanese's dreams of a gold medal by defeating him in the semifinal 6-2. The gold medal match will be between INKAEWA and top seed DONG Zhi (CHN).   The recurve men W1/W2 lost its top two seeds, TSENG Lung Hui (CHN) and JUNG Young Joo (KOR) in the quarterfinals. The No. 3 seed CHENG Changjie (CHN) kept the host country’s hopes alive by making it to the gold medal match where he will face No. 4 RANJBARKIVAJE (IRI). Iran has the opportunity of winning two medals with the outstanding match play performer seeded No. 10 Roham SHAHABIPOUR winning through to the bronze medal match.   Two more outstanding archers out-performed their seeding in the compound men Open division. The No. 12 seed Kazumasa HATTORI (JPN) finally lost in the semifinals to No. 1 LEE Hong Gu (KOR). The No. 10 qualifier WU Tung Sang (HKG) lost his semifinal match to No. 3 KWEON Hyun Ju (KOR).   The most surprising outcome of the day was the defeat of the new world record holder GAO Fangxia (CHN). She lost in straight sets 6-0 to KIM Ransook (KOR). After 3 tied sets and one set each, SHIR MOHAMMAD Razieh (IRI) showed nerves of steel to score a perfect 10 in the shoot-off against her opponent LEE Hwa Sook (KOR) to set up the gold medal match with KIM.   The recurve women W1/W2 went pretty much with the seeding with top qualifier. KO Hee Sook (KOR) was untroubled to reach the gold medal match without dropping a set. The No. 3 seed XIAO Yanhong (CHN) defeated No. 2 NEMATI Zahra (IR) in the semifinal.   There were about two hundred spectators to watch the matches including around one hundred young school children. They showed the perfect behaviour of good sports people. Of course they cheered loudly for all the Chinese archers but they clapped the good shots of all archers no matter who they were or who they were shooting against. They respected all the archers by maintaining silence when archers were on full draw. They added colour and enthusiasm to this important competition and everyone was very pleased they were there.   We hope the forecasters are correct and the wind will blow itself out during the morning so all the individual medal matches for men and women can take place in the afternoon.   The full results can be found on the competition's website here.     Carole HICKS World Archery Communication