PARIS, FR – The Canadians shot their recurve elimination rounds in the third stage of the World Cup, which included matches from the men’s team, mixed team, and individual Stephanie Barrett.

The men’s recurve team was made up of Andrew Azores, Eric Peters, and Conner Sorley. On Thursday, they faced off against 11th-ranked Kazakhstan in the first round of eliminations. Unfortunately, they dropped the match 0-6 but never lost a match by more than 4 points. 

“We shot well and though we didn’t come away with the win, we put in our best effort and are ready for the next time,” comments Peters after the match. 

Competition started on Thursday with the mixed team event. Stephanie Barrett and Eric Peters shot against the Indonesian team for the first match of the day and won the match after a tiebreaker. They tied both of the first two ends, then Indonesia won the third end. The Canadian duo then took the final end, pushing the score to 4-4. The tiebreaker meant that each of them had to shoot one arrow. The Indonesian team both shot a 9, while Barrett shot a 10 and Peters’ arrow hit the 9. This result meant that they advanced onto the ⅛ finals against Turkey, who ranked 3rd in qualifications and featured Tokyo 2021 gold medalist Mete Gazoz. While the teams tied the second end, Turkey walked away from the match victorious. 

“It’s been fantastic getting back out with a team and shooting a high level competition where we’ll be in a couple years,” says Barrett, referencing the 2024 Olympics in Paris.

Following the mixed team event, Barrett was back on the shooting line for her individual matches. Her first opponent was Yi-Ching Chiu from Chinese Taipei and she won the first two ends, and then tied the final two to earn a winning score of 6-2. This moved Barrett onto the 1/16 finals against 13th-ranked Michelle Kroppen of Germany, and they had an incredibly close match. Kroppen won the first two ends by only one point each, and then Barrett was able to tie the last two ends, leaving Kroppen with the final winning score of 6-2. 

“Michelle is a great archer, it was a tough match back and forth. The scores definitely didn’t show it,” Barrett continues. “I had some really good shots and came away with a few things to focus on moving forward.”

The team in Paris was accompanied by Shawn Riggs, National Recurve Coach and Alan Brahmst, High Performance Director. They were also joined by Joe Leszner, Mental Performance Coach, who was able to provide his thoughts on seeing the athletes on the field. 

“It’s been great to see what actually happens in the environment, beyond what I hear about on a Zoom call,” says Leszner. “It’s even cooler to see how they stack up against the other athletes from other countries and really see where we can put our mark on the world stage.” 

These eliminations wrap up the Canadians’ stint at the third stage of the archery World Cup in Paris and points the program towards the 4th stage of the World Cup in Medellin, Colombia, taking place from July 18-24, 2022. Paris is playing host to the 2024 Olympics and so this was a good preview of the competition to come in two years.

For all the results from this stage of the World Cup, click here: https://info.ianseo.net/?Schedule

For more information, please contact:

Zoe Meil, Communications & Safe Sport Coordinator

zmeil@archerycanada.ca

(613) 260-2113 ext. 3

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