Today's events at the fourth stage of the 2022 Hyundai World Cup in Medellin saw the recurve women team make the gold final, and compound woman Ella Gibson make the individual semi-finals.
The recurve team eliminations took place on Thursday morning, starting off with men's 1/8th round. Patrick Huston, Tom Hall and Conor Hall faces the 6th ranked team from Mexico. The Mexicans took an early lead, opening the match with a 57-52. GB came back strong with two 55s in the next two ends. However, Mexico weren't letting any points slide, taking the win from GB 6-0.
In the women's 1/8 round, Bryony Pitman, Penny Healey and Jaspreet Sagoo shot against the team from Colombia. GB took the first set point with 54 points to 46, and then Colombia took the next end with 55-53. The GB women then came back to take the final two ends to win the match 6-2.
Next in the quarter finals, the women shot against Spain. The match was over quickly, GB dominating from the start to take the win with straight sets 6-0.
The all important seem-finals was a nail biter of a match against the 2nd ranked team from Mexico. The Mexicans took the first two end wins with 54 and 53. The GB then came back with 55 and 54 to take the last two ends to bring the match to a shoot-off. Both teams shot 10, 9, 8, however the judge deemed the tie too close to call and the archers had to do a second shoot-off end. Once again, both teams shot the same score with 9, 9, 9, but this time GB had the closest arrow to the centre to take the win. They will shoot in Sunday's live gold medal final.
Â"The team rounds were really good. I had a feeling from the start that it was going to be a good day for us. We work well together and were able to keep each other positive, even when we were 4-0 down against Mexico. The double shoot-off was interesting. The judge didn't measure the second arrow and instead made us reshoot where we tied on score again, but we had a closer 9 than Mexico. It feels awesome to be in another gold medal match with Jess and Penny, especially knowing we can still shoot better than we did, it's a great place to be! I'm excited for Sunday against Korea, we'll go out there, shoot good shots, have fun and see what happens,” Bryony Pitman said.
On Thursday afternoon, the GB compound women shot their individual eliminations. Layla Annison was the only GB woman to shoot the 1/32 round where she won against Snak Nisi of Brazil 145-136. In the 1/16th round, Layla unfortunately lost to Mariana Bernal of Mexico 143-142.
Lizzie Foster also sadly lost her 1/16th match against Eliza Roner of Italy, 145-141.
Ella Gibson won against the 33rd ranked Puerto Rican archer 142-137.
Izzy Carpenter also won her match 144-138 against the 24th ranked Indian archer.
In the 1/8th round, Ella Gibson faced Eliza Roner who previously beat teammate Foster. The match was all tied by end three on 89 points each, but Ella finished with two 30s to take the win 149-146.
Izzy Carpenter came up against teammate Annison's previous opponent, Mariana Bernal from Mexico. Izzy took an early lead with a clean 60 after two ends to the Mexican's 57, and in the end she won the match by four points, 147-143.
Due to the unlucky draw of the matches, Ella and Izzy then had to shoot against one another for a place in the semi-finals. Ella opened with two 30s to take an early lead, and then slowly progressed with the advantage. Ella took the win 147-141 over Izzy Carpenter.
Â"It feels incredible to make another final four at this last world cup stage this year. I know every match is going to incredibly difficult, but I'm planning on taking it one arrow at a time, shoot my arrows and see where I end up,” Ella Gibson told us.
In the recurve men's 1/32 round, Tom Hall faced Tang from Chinese Taipei where he took the first two end wins with 29 and 30. His opponent then took the next three ends to win the match 6-4. Teammate Conor Hall shot against 10th ranked Steve Wijler from the Netherlands, where sadly Conor was beaten 6-0.
Patrick Huston came up against Adrian Puentes from Cuba, and shot 28, 29 and 30 to take the win 6-0.
In the 1/16th, Patrick then faced 1st ranked archer from Korea, Je Deok Kim. The Korean opened with a 30 to take the first end. The second end was close, Patrick narrowly missing out on the set points, shooting a 28 to Kim's 29. The Korean took the win with straight sets 6-0.
On the recurve women's side. Sarah Bettles shot against Vazquez from Mexico for the 1/32 round. The Mexican took the first end, and then Sarah came back to take the next two ends. Unfortunately, Vazquez took the final two ends with 30 and 26 to win.
Penny Healey came up against Andreoli from Italy. The Italian won the first two sets, and then the two archers tied the third end on 28. Another 28 in the final end to Penny's 25 was enough for the Italian to take the win 7-1.
Jaspreet Sagoo shot a consistent match for her 1/32 round against Anagoz from Turkey. Sadly for Jaspreet, her three 27 ends were not enough to take the set points away from the Turkish archer who won 6-0.
Bryont Pitman shot her first match against Cebrian from Spain. The Spanish took the first end, but then Bryony came back to take three end wins as well as one end tied, winning 7-3.
The 1/16 round against USA's Gnoriega was a very close match. The American took end one and three, and Bryony took end two and four. The fifth end was tied on 28s each time take it to a shoot-off. Both women managed a 10, but Bryony's was the closest to the centre to take the win.
In the 1/8th round, Bryony had yet another close match, this time against Ana Vazquez who previously beat teammate Bettles. The Mexican took the first end, Bryony took ends two and three, and Vazquez took end four. The fifth end was tied on 26 each to take the match to a shoot-off. Bryony shot the better of the two 9s to take her into the quarter finals.
The all important quarter finals for Bryony was against 3rd ranked archer from Korea Chae Young Kang. The Korean took end one with a 29, but then Bryony shot a perfect 30 in end two to bring the points all square on 2-2. The Korean then shot 28 and 29 in the final two ends to win 6-2.
