April 15, 2018

VeronicaÂ’s Cup: two silver medals for Britain!

British teams will be coming home with two silver medals from the Veronica's Cup world ranking event in Slovenia!

The recurve women's team of Kate Dunnighan, Jaspreet Sagoo and Rebekah Tipping qualified second and beat Cyprus 6-2 for a place in the gold medal match against Slovenia. And it was close but the home favourites finally triumphed, winning 5-3.

And the second silver went to compounders James Mason, Carl Richards and Simon Scott. The second seeds defeated the Czech Republic 230-227 in the semis to earn a title showdown with top-ranked Croatia. They battled hard but Croatia eventually struck gold with a 236-228 win.

A shoot-off kept Bayley Sargeant and Simon Scott out of the compound mixed team semi-finals. Both they and Austria scored 151. That meant a decider. The Britons shot 17 - but the Austrians hit two 10s to go through. They finished in fourth place behind Belgium and Croatia beat Slovenia to gold.

Qualifying in sixth spot put Sarah Smith and Alex Smith through to the quarter finals of the recurve mixed team competition. But there they met the third seeds, Luminita Boros and Andrei Danila of Romania, who took the match 6-0 and eventually finished fourth behind Austria. The Netherlands took the title, beating Slovenia 5-3.

In the individual competitions we had hard-won fourth places. Recurver Alex Smith battled through shoot-offs against Romania's Ghenadi Iepuri and then third seed Rok Bizjak of Slovenia. That left him facing another Slovenian, Den Habjan Malavasic - who had earlier ended Michael Klein's hopes - for a place in the semi-finals. Alex claimed a 6-2 victory but was just edged out of a chance of gold, losing 4-6 to second seed and home favourite Gasper Strajhar, who went on to take the title.

Bayley Sargeant put on a fantastic show and came so close to winning compound bronze. She qualified fourth, one ahead of Lucy O'Sullivan, and was given a bye against Iceland's Eva Ros Sveinsdottir while Lucy beat another Icelander, Astrid Daxbock. That left Bayley and Lucy facing each other in the quarter-finals - and there was only one point in it but Bayley went through with a 142-141 win.

The result was a semi-final showdown with top seed Toja Ellison of Slovenia, who edged a 145-143 victory. Bayley faced Amanda Mlinaric in the battle for bronze. Again, it was hard fought but the Croatian won the medal 144-141. Ellison beat Edinburgh University's Sarah Prieels, shooting for Belgium, to take the title. The Slovenian also put paid to Susan Corless's hopes after she, in turn, had beaten Stephanie Clason 139-128.

In the women's recurve category, Jaspreet Sagoo made it to the quarter finals after winning a shoot-off against Christina Hadjierotocritou of Cyprus and beating Romania's Luminita Boros 6-2 to secure a showdown with third seed Jessica Tomasi. But the Italian was on fine form, winning 7-1 and going on to secure gold in a shoot-off against countrywoman Stefania Franceschelli.

Fifth seed Kate Dunnighan was beaten in a shoot-off against Franceschelli, as was Rebekah Tipping who fell foul of Italy's Lisa Bettinelli. Sarah Smith beat the Czech Republic's Jana Cimicka in a shoot-off but then fell 0-6 to fourth seed Ana Umer of Slovenia. Klara Fay was beaten 7-1 by Cypriot Irene Andreou.

James Mason made it to the quarter final of the men's compound category, beating Maciej Stepien of Iceland and Austria's Michael Matzner along the way. That brought him head to head with top seed Mario Vavro of Croatia. There was only one point in it but the Croatian progressed to eventually take silver, beaten by countryman Domagoj Buden. Simon Scott was edged out by Slovakia's Vladimir Hurban and Carl Richards also lost by a single point to the Czech Republic's Filip Reitmeier.

You can find out more about the competition here.

And you can find all the results here.