Garrett makes gold final by millimetres

The recurve division saw some dramatic finishes under the floodlights in Yuanshen.

It was a tough day for the USA team, as all except two of their recurve archers were defeated before the round of 32. In the men’s event, after Brady Ellison went down to Russia’s Arsalan Baldanov, it was left to Zach Garrett, who had been consistent all day, to carry the USA’s hopes. 

It finally came down to a semifinal with Wei Chun Heng of Chinese Taipei.

Both men shot strong across five sets, and it came down to a shoot-off. Wei shot first, leaving Zach time to reflect before his shot. Both arrows were solid 10s, and so similar the judges had to get calipers out to measure the distance to the centre. It took agonising moments to resolve but, finally, was called for Zach – to a roar from the entire USA team.

“I knew I couldn’t shoot as fast as he could, so I knew I was going to be going second,” said Garrett. “I saw where his arrow hit, and all I said to myself was: ‘I can do this’.”

“It felt good today. There’s really no beautiful reason why, it just felt good. Good to shoot the way I know I can shoot.”

In the other half of the draw, second seed Sjef van den Berg moved through the brackets, barely breaking a sweat and losing just a single set point before finally stopping an impressive run from Ernesto Boardman of Mexico in the semifinal, 7-3. 

“I have a couple things I have to look for in my shooting that are weak, so I’ve been focused on that. I think I shot one eight where I didn’t extend fully, but the rest were all shot pretty well,” said Sjef.

“It’s been a little above expectations here, especially yesterday in qualification. I knew that I could shoot high scores, have been putting them in in training, but yesterday I shot my first 350 in competition. With that in mind, I continued to shoot for 10s today. Instead of just shooting good shots, it felt like I could shoot 10s on demand. It felt like I’d taken a great mental step.”

“I’m looking forward to the teams tomorrow. We have some incredible recurves and we’re ranked second for a reason.”

In the recurve women’s competition, Deepika Kumari continued the marker she laid down yesterday by cruising her way to the quarters, only to be stopped short by 2013 World Archery Champion Maja Jager making a resurgent run.

Kumari’s teammate Laxmirani Majhi also made the quarters but ran into Universiade team gold medallist Tan Ya-Ting, who continued her strong form into the semifinal against Jager, winning in four sets. Sunday will see Jager’s first medal match since she took European Games silver in Baku last year.

The highly-experienced Tan said afterwards: “I was pretty excited. So I just reminded myself not to think too much!”

“I don’t really like to compete with others, I just like to compete with myself, and keep improving my scores.”

In the other half of the women’s draw, two cadets – Kim Chaeyun and Ju Hyebhin – came through to contest an all Korean semi-final, with four straight 29s from Ju putting her into the gold medal match on her international debut.