Chinese Taipei increased their first end, 1-point advantage (53-52) to a 2-point lead half-way (107-105). The Asian ladies increased their advantage to 164-158 with only six arrows left in this match. The Italians could not recover from this 6-point deficit and watched their opponents meet Korea in the gold final. Final score of this second semi-final: 215-212.
Great Britain versus Italy shooting for the World Championships bronze medal! Valeeva, Tonetta and Lionetti opened with 8-8-9 (25), while Folkard, Williamson and Burgess started with 8-10-9 (27). Great Britain led Italy after three arrows. The first end finished with an 8-9-9 for the Italians, whereas the British shot 8-10-9 to take a 3-point advantage (54-51). Taking advantage of a 7 by the British Burgess, Italy came back in the second end and tied the match at the half-way mark (105-105). A better performance by Italy (10-7-8-9-10-9), but not enough to stay level with Great-Britain (10-9-10-9-9-8) after the third end: the British led by two points (160-158) at that point. With their last six arrows, Valeeva and team-mates scored 8-8-10-8-9-9, too many 8s for them to hope to win this bronze medal match. Great Britain finished the match shooting 9-9-10-9-10-6 and clinched victory by 213-210.
Gold Medal: Korea (1) - Chinese Taipei (7)
Lee and Choi started with two perfect 10s, followed with an 8 by Park. It was 28 for Korea after the first three arrows. The ladies from Chinese Taipei, Yuan Shen and Wu opened up their match with 10-8-7. With a score of 25 they trailed by three points. Olympic Champion Park and team-mates closed the first end with 10-9-10 and an intermediate total of 57. Chinese Taipei scored 10-8-10 but was behind on 53. Led by Lee with four 10s so far, the Koreans increased their lead by four points shooting 10-9-9-10-10-9 (114). Although their top archer Yuan also scored four 10s with her first four arrows, the team of Chinese Taipei had a total of 108 at the half-way mark. The margin kept increasing for Korea: 169-163 after they shot 10-9-9-9-9-9 (10-8-9-10-9-9 for Chinese Taipei in this end). With a six point disadvantage and nothing to lose, Yuan and her team-mates shot an amazing 10-10-10 series with three arrows to go. At that point Korea could control the match with a 9-9-10. Chinese Taipei finished with 10-9-9 and 212 points. It is worth noting that in this match their first archer Yuan shot eight 10s with her eight arrows! Unfortunately for her, she could not prevent her team from losing the match, leaving the defending champions win another World title! Korea finished with10-10-9 and a total of 226.
Quotes from the Winners Park Sung-Hyun (KOR) – gold medal
It’s wonderful to win a final! We had a lot of training and a lot of mental confidence. I have a lot of trust in my team-mate as well. My Olympic gold medal will forever be a special memory for me, but it feels great to win another title!
Choi Eun Young (KOR) – gold medal
I am very happy. As soon as the internal selection was done, we trained a lot together. It’s hard to win a gold medal and I think the team one is the most important. You must believe in your team and I would like to share the happiness with all the players. I was disappointed with my individual results but I stayed positive to help the team.
Team Chinese Taipei silver medal
It’s just a mission impossible to beat Korea! We just didn’t shoot as well as they did. Anyway, we’re very happy about our silver medal and want to celebrate with some German beer now.
Team Great Britain – bronze medal
During the last three arrows we knew that we’d win. However the Italians are brilliant archers as well. But we were in a very good condition and just made it after all.
Team Italy
Well, that’s the game. The rounds were pretty difficult and we just didn’t have enough luck. Anyway, we hoped until the very last arrow that the tide would turn in our favour, but unfortunately it didn’t happen.
