July 07, 2018

Nove Mesto: Two more golds!

Two golds brought Great Britain's medal haul at the world ranking European Para-Archery Cup in Nove Mesto to five, taking us to second place in the medals table.

Jessica Stretton was on red-hot form as she battled for the women's compound title. She seized top spot on the compound women's ranking board and swept past Korea's Choi Na Mi 145-133, teammate Jodie Grinham 144-139 and Nur Syahidah Alim of Singapore 142-138 to set up a gold medal clash with Stepanida Artakhinova of Russia. There was only one point between the equally determined competitors - but Jessica edged it and is now second to the Russian in the rankings, having only shot one of the two stages. Jodie Grinham is third.

Victoria Rumary tops the W1 rankings after a thrilling and dramatic gold medal-winning performance. The top seed beat Anna Ilina of Russia 137-125 to set up a title decider with Kim Ok Geum of Korea. It was neck and neck all the way and the athletes finished their final end tied on 129. That forced a shoot-off - and both archers shot a 10 with no clear winner. That meant another shoot-off and the Korean faltered, shooting a nine as Victoria's arrow hit the 10 for the win. Teammate Jo Frith is currently third in the rankings with Martin Saych 10th and John Cavanagh 14th.

Hazel Chaisty made the team as a wildcard selection and ended the tournament shooting for recurve bronze. The fifth seed saw off Yagmur Sengul of Turkey 6-4 and Russia's Margarita Sidorenko in a shoot-off before going head to head with Iran's Zarah Nemati in the semis. It was nail-bitingly close but the top seed edged it 6-4. That left Hazel facing another Iranian, Zahra Delkhosh, in the bronze medal battle. And it was a battle but, in the end, Delkhosh edged it, winning 6-4. Hazel is now sixth in the rankings, with teammate Tania Nadarajah eighth. David Phillips is 15th.

Compounder John Stubbs was also due to be shooting for bronze after defeating Kazakhstan's Alexandr Medvedev, Pierre Claesson of Sweden and Tarif of India before being edged out of gold medal contention by Marcel Pavlik of Slovakia. John was unable to compete today, which gave USA's Ben Thompson a bye into third place. John is now fifth in the rankings, with Nathan Macqueen seventh, Jamie Harris 22nd and John Walker 32nd.

Yesterday, Britain took a hard-fought silver and two bronze medals.

Top seeds Jodie Grinham, Victoria Rumary and Jessica Stretton faced Korea in the compound team showdown after seeing off a semi-final challenge from the USA. The finalists were neck and neck all the way - but Korea edged ahead by a single point to take the victory.

Both our mixed teams bagged bronze. Victoria teamed up with John Cavanagh for the W1 match. The top seeds had a bye into the semis but lost by two points to the USA. So they too faced Korea - and were determined not to go home empty handed. They beat the second seeds 142-138.

Jessica and John Stubbs saw off Korea in the quarter finals of the compound mixed team category but the top seeds were edged out of a title shot by Russia. That left them facing Turkey - where they produced some great shooting, giving them a decisive 153-149 win.

You can catch up the individual finals here.

And you can find all the results here.

Above: Jessica Stretton receives her medal. Picture: World Archery Europe