The para archers out in Rome for the 2022 European Archery Para Championships have just completed their individual eliminations.
A few targets down, fellow compound open woman Phoebe Paterson Pine shot against 14th ranked Mihaela Radu from Romania in the 1/8 round. Phoebe stormed ahead, shooting a 28 to her opponent's 22. A 29 from Phoebe in end two extended her lead further to 18 points after Radu shot a 17 end. Phoebe continued to add more points onto her score with 27 and a perfect 30 to her opponent's 14 and 11. After the last end, Phoebe won with an overall score of 142-86.
Phoebe then faced Eleonora Sarti from Italy who ranked in 6th place in the quarter finals. Phoebe shot a 29 followed by a 30 end to the Italian's 27 and 28, to lead the match by four points after only two ends. Sarti then shot a 29 to Phoebe's 27 in the third end to bring back two points. The fourth end was tied on 27 apiece, and in the fifth end was also tied on 28 each. A 141 from Phoebe to the Italian's 139 won her a place in the semi-finals.
The last match of the day for Phoebe saw her shoot against Maria Andrea Virgilio from Italy. The 2nd ranked Italian shot a perfect 30 to open the match to Phoebe's 28. Phoebe then responded with a 30 to Virgilio's 29 to bring them to only one point apart. After the third end, Phoebe overtook the Italian by shooting a 29 to her 27. The fourth end was tied on 29 points each, and Phoebe completed the match on a perfect 30. After a win of 146-142, Phoebe has earned her place in the gold medal match on Saturday.
"I feel super happy with how I shot today and how it went. I went into the matches nervous because I wanted to do well, but I stuck to my process and focused on taking it arrow by arrow and that worked really well. I'm really excited to the individual finals. This is my second European champs so I wanted to do well, and I'm glad that I've made it to the top two now. This is bonus territory for me now as I've surpassed my goals for this week. I just want to go out there and enjoy myself and shoot my shot," Phoebe said.
”Phoebe shot really well today in the extreme temperatures we are experiencing at this event.
She battled through her quarter final and shot an exceptional match in her semi final. We are now looking forward to getting out onto the Finals field and enjoy shooting in front of a crowd,” Phoebe's coach, Andrea Gales, said.
1st ranked Jessica Stretton had a bye for her first round of the eliminations. In the quarter finals, she faced Poland's Kseniya Markitantova who ranked in 9th place. Jessica took an early lead shooting a 27 to Markitantova's 25 in the first end, and then she was three points up after the second end with 56-53. Another 29 from Jessica to her opponent's 28 took them to 85-81 after the third end. Jessica extended her lead even further to a 6 point advantage with 113-107. In the final end, Jessica finished on a 26 to Markitantova's 24, winning the match 139-131.
In the semi-finals, Jessica then met Turkey's O?znur Cu?re who ranked in 4th position. Both archer's equalled the first end on 29 apiece. Cu?re shot another 29 in the second end, however Jessica shot a 26 to put her in a three point deficit. Jessica came back with a 29 to bring her total score to 84, but her opponent threw down a perfect 30 to take her score to 88. Cu?re then dropped a 28 to Jessica's 29, bringing the Brit only three points behind instead of four. In the fifth and final end, both archers shot a 28 which unfortunately wasn't enough for Jessica to take the match win. She has earned herself a place in Saturday's bronze medal match against Italy's Maria Andrea Virgilio.
"Eliminations went well today, I'm proud to have made it through to the bronze medal match! I'm excited yet anxious for the match, but it will hopefully be really fun!" Jess said.
"I'm really pleased and proud of how Jess performed today. It can sometimes be tough having a bye and adjusting to coming into the eliminations cold when your opponent has had a match. We focussed on being switched on from the start of warm up and treating the bye as a scored match. Obviously it would have been great to get into the gold match, but we will be making sure we are prepped and ready to perform in the bronze match on Friday," Tom Duggan, coach to Jessica, said.
Â"It's really hard to put into words how tough the conditions in Rome have been. The heat has been extreme and is probably worse than what we experienced in Tokyo, even more so given that the organisers have chosen to put the event on an astroturf which increases the heat even more. Whilst we've been really proactive with some of the learnings around cooling strategies the conditions have been really challenging,” Tom Duggan added.
