The Hyundai Archery World Cup Stage 1 in Shanghai, China, challenged its largest field ever in all divisions, with nearly 332 competitors from more than 37 countries. There were 115 competitors in the Men’s Olympic Recurve Division. On Tuesday, the Olympic Recurve archers battled in a three-hour qualifying session.
The scores were extremely high in the march to the Olympics. Korea’s Kim Woojin shot a 699-point qualifying round, matching the third-highest score in history for the 72-arrow 70-metre in history, to take the top recurve men’s. Woojin delivered a score that trails only Brady Ellison’s world-record 702 and his own 700 from the 2016 Olympics.
Three recurve men broke 690 on the day. New Pan American Champion Matias Grande (Mexico) was seeded second with 695 points and India’s top archer Dhiraj Bommadevara had 693. Both are competition bests and national records.
In a field of 115 competitors in the Men’s Recurve Division, Nicholas D’Amour of the Virgin Islands qualified in 36th with a score of 666, going into the elimination round.
In the elimination round, the field in the Men’s Division was cut from 115 to 64 competitors. With 51 archers cut, D’Amour faced Mohammadhossein Golshanu Asl of Iran in the first round. With the score 5-5, D’Amour lost an incredibly close match in a one-arrow shoot-off to his Iranian opponent.
