Three W1 women tie on leading score in category’s worlds debut

China’s Guo Ying shot the most 10s (21), followed by Britain’s Jo Frith and Jessica Stretton, with 19 and 15, respectively. Ten-count is used as the primary tiebreaker to decide seedings in the case of tied scores over the ranking round.

“My shooting was great,” said 15-year-old Stretton, who led for much of the round. “The score was 640 which was a new international personal best for me. It was a bit wet, but there was nothing you can do really about that.”

British pair Frith and Stretton along with third athlete Vicky Jenkins shot a combined score of 1880, the highest known to date in the fledgling W1 division.

However, with Great Britain being the only nation to field a full three-athlete W1 women’s roster at the event, no official team event for the category takes place in Donaueschingen, so the qualification score cannot be ratified as a world record.

Although the W1 category did exist prior to the new classification categories coming into effect on 1 April 2014, it was only for male competitors. Donaueschingen 2015 marks W1 women athletes’ first ever world championship.

Competing for that first world crown are 11 athletes from eight nations, including Russia, Spain, Korea, USA, and the Czech Republic, as well as China and Great Britain.

“It’s nice to see so many really good archers competing in the W1,” said Frith, para world ranked number one in the new category heading into Donaueschingen 2015.

Britain was also strong in the VI2/3 competition. Steve Prowse posted a top score of 636, while teammate Peter Price had 534 for second. The USA’s Janice Walth’s 362 topped the VI1 category.