92-point world record set by Russian recurve open team

Bato Tsydendorzhiev led recurve men’s open qualification as the Russian team dominated the category, setting a new team ranking round world record score of 1926 in the process.

Current individual world record holder Tsydendorzhiev scored 652, whilst teammates Sergey Khutakov and Anton Zaypaev scored 641 and 633, respectively, as Russia occupied three of the top six places in the standings.

Shi Xu Cheng of China led for much the round but finished in third place, scoring 639, while Iranian teammates Gholamreza Rahimi and ’11 World Champion Ebrahim Ranjbarkivaj came fourth and fifth, respectively. 

However, it was the Russians who set the standard from the start.

“I am very happy with the win and the team world record,” said Tsydendorzhiev. “I shot really well today and so did my teammates. We have been training a lot in the build up to this competition and felt well prepared coming to Germany.”

Tsydendorzhiev remained modest and refused to look past the next set of arrows as the competition advances, with the medal positions and also Rio 2016 qualification to be earned.

“We went into the event aiming to do as well as possible, but we never look past the day’s play as anything can happen,” he said.

Italy’s Roberto Airoldi shot 632 to beat Eric Bennett of the United States to seventh position in the standings, but Bennett was particularly impressed with the standard at the event.

“You’re at the World Championships so you would expect the competition to be tough,” Bennett said. “The scores just seem to be getting higher and higher and the Russian team showed that today, for sure.”

The USA squad also set a personal best for team qualifying, scoring 1861.

It was a score that would have beaten the previous world record before the start of the day.

“I felt really good about my preparation coming into today, probably the best I have ever felt at a World Championships,” Bennett continued. 

“The three of us really push each other in training and today was no different. We all have the capability to set really high scores.”