UK Student Archery Association

Emma Downie goes to Izmir [02/Apr/07]

The archery calendar threw up an interesting clash early in March with BUSA Indoor Champs in Leeds clashing with the World Indoor Champs, being held in Izmir, the same venue that hosted the 2005 World University Summer Games (Universiade) that featured archery as a guest sport. Emma Downie (Edinburgh) didn't make the 2005 trip, Naomi Folkard (then Birmingham) was the only lady recurve to do so, but both were part of the British Ladies Team in Izmir for this event. Sadly this required her to miss the BUSA Champs, although as Warwick can testify, her club-mates performed admirably in her absence.

Unsurprisingly the World Championships offer a stiff test and despite scoring a formidable 564 on a FITA 18 and with 29 golds and only five 8s, this was enough for 29th place exactly tied with team-mate Lana Needham. Naomi Folkard qualified 2nd, but needed a 586 to do it. Qualifying in 29th meant Emma went through to the knock-out phase, where she came up against 4th place qualifier Natalya Erdyniyeva (Russia). Despite the seeding gap the match was evenly contested, the Russian eventually coming through the R32 match 115-114 and Emma finished in 21st place. Naomi Folkard went on to reach the semi-finals, ending up fourth. Nami Hayakawa (Japan) beat Berengere Schuh (France) 113-111 in the final.

The British ladies recurve team was 6th= out of 12 but lost by a single point 226-225 to the USA in the first knock-out round. France beat Germany in the final. The British men (Alan Wills, Grant Womack and Michael Peart) qualified 9th out of 13 and beat Turkey 226-222 in round 1, before running into eventual winners Italy in the QFs and losing 228-232.

In gents recurve Sebastian Rohrberg (Germany) beat Markiyan Ivashko (Ukraine) 118-117 in the final, after Rohrberg had served up a maximum 120 to beat Olympic champion Marco Galiazzo (Italy) in the semi. Galiazzo's luck did not improve in the bronze shoot-off where he shot 119 out of 120 and still lost, this time to a maximum from Shawn Rice (USA). Current FISU Champion Braden Gallenthien (USA) won the gents compound final beating Jose Duo (Spain) 116-114. Eugenia Salvi (Italy) beat Fatima Agudo (Spain) 117-113 in the ladies equivalent. The USA won both team compound categories.

Emma Downie was a novice in the 2002/03 season and less than five years later qualified for the knock-out phase of the World Indoor Championship, and within a point of a last 16 place. I was going to wax lyrical about how fabulous this was, but I think that a simple description says far more. For full results check out the World Champs results on the FITA site