Arco, World Cup: Italy greets Antalya with the Olympic silver

A podium, a fourth place and positive feelings for the male and female teams of the Olympic National team returning from Antalya. The first stage of the world cup took place in Turkey, the first act of a long and demanding international outdoor season and the results of this event have various implications. For the winners of the individual races, gold also meant direct qualification to the final of the circuit which will be held in Mexico in October, while for the teams, the positions obtained also have a value for the world ranking which, for the first time, will have a role in view of the qualifications for Paris 2024. It is for this reason that the silver won by the Olympians Mauro Nespoli, Alessandro Paoli and David Pasqualucci and the fourth place of the blue Lucilla Boari, Tatiana Andreoli and Karen Hervat, in addition to emphasizing competitiveness of Italy, were worth points that could have a weight in view of the race to the next Olympic Games.

The numbers of the race

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As regards the general values ​​of the event, it should be emphasized that, for the first time since the advent of the covid, the competitions were able to take place almost entirely with the rules that were in force before the pandemic and, as regards the quality of the players in the field , the challenges were certainly convincing: to be honest it should be noted that the bogey South Korea were not present among the Asian teams, in addition to China and Malaysia but, overall, there were 47 nations in the race and a total of 197 archers in the recurve and another 143 for the compound. In short, we are talking about numbers that overall give value to performance. In the compound, Italy was unable to express itself as it had been able to do on other occasions, testifying to the continuous international growth of the specialists of this division. The Italian interpreters did not manage to compete for a medal either in the individual or in the team tests. Which instead happened in the Olympic division. After a good qualification, in fact, the Azzurri tried to make their way in the individual, arriving with the Olympian Mauro Nespoli to touch the semifinal, vanished after the match against the world champion Brady Ellison for 7-3, while Tatiana Andreoli had been stopped in the second round. But the best performances came thanks to the teams.

Blue at the foot of the podium

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The women’s trio of the Olympic arch stopped at the foot of the podium: Tatiana Andreoli, Lucilla Boari and Karen Hervat were overtaken at the shoot off from Taipei (Kuo, Lei, Peng) at the end of a swing of emotions 5-4 ( 29-25). The blues win the first set 53-50, but the opponents overturn the situation (59-56 and 55-52), a hard blow to which the national team responds with a 55-52 which sends the verdict back to the play-off arrows. In the last three pitches, however, the Taipei formation is more precise and wins the challenge. The road to the final for the bronze had seen the blues beat Bangladesh (Akter, Nisha, Siddique) and India (Bhakat, Kaur, Ridhi) with a double 6-2, while the semifinal was unlucky with the long fight against Germany (Bauer , Kroppen, Schwarz), seeded number one on the board, which ends at the shoot off and rewards the Germans 5-4 (23-26).

Silver blues

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On the other hand, the medal of Mauro Nespoli, Alessandro Paoli and David Pasqualucci, also stopped in the decisive match from Taipei (Su, Tang Wei), is silver. The Italian trio is defeated 6-0 at the end of a challenge in which the opponents take all three sets with a particularly high race pace in which 18 arrows come out of the yellow only on two occasions, obtained with the following partial: 56 -50, 57-55 and 57-55. Previously Italy had reached the final thanks to the successes over Kazakhstan for 5-1, over Germany again for 5-1 and then in the semifinals against Ukraine in a 6-2 comeback. The latter managed to take part in the competition thanks to the commitment of the International Federation, the Ukrainian Olympic Committee and the many archers who are raising funds to allow Ukrainian nationals to continue competing in major international seasonal events.

The other results

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As for the other results, the women’s team competition was won by Great Britain over Germany by 5-1, while in the mixed team it is India who beat the British duo in the final 5-4 after the play-off (18- 17). In the mixed, Italy took the field with Andreoli and Nespoli who were narrowly stopped in the quarterfinals by the USA after the 5-4 play-off (19-18). The individual competition instead saw the success of the English archer Bryony Pitman who overtook the Dutch Laura Van Der Winkel 6-5 (8 * -8) at the shoot-off, bronze to Bauer who won the German derby 6-2 against Schwarz. As for the men’s finals, Spaniard Miguel Alvarino Garcia got on the top step of the podium, beating Australian Ryan Tyack 6-0. Bronze to the American Brady Ellison who overcomes the Olympic champion and host Mete Gazoz 7-3. The World Cup will return in May, from 16 to 22, in Gwangju in South Korea and then will continue in Paris from 20 to 26 June and in Medellin, Colombia, from 18 to 24 July. The final is scheduled in Mexico, in Tlaxcala, on 15 and 16 October.