Archers gain ground in world rankings

A four-men strong archery delegation, headed by members the Archery Association of Namibia (AAN), recently returned with mixed results from the World Cup which took place in Antalya, Turkey earlier in June.
In total, 53 countries with 397 archers – of which 96 were compound men, took part at the prestigious event.
The event saw the team of Lesley Page, Louw Nel, Francois Marais and Ruan van Staden come up against the world elite of archery.
Page started with a World Archery (WA) ranking of 198th and ended 91st after the 720 qualification round, gaining a good 647 points. During 1/48 eliminations, Page came up against 22nd ranked Alberto Blazquez from Spain. Blazquez eventually went through to the next round with 140 points against Page’s 130 points.
In other action Marais, who had competed at last year’s World Cup Stage 2 in Antalya and at the World Games in Colombia, showed that the experience gained at these events was worthwhile. He started with a 65th rank and quickly made 57th rank thanks to a solid score of 684 points during his 720 round. In his elimination round against Daniel Martin (56th) from Brazil, Marais had a tight match, giving it away only with his last arrow. Martin went through with 139 against Francois 138.

Nel, starting with the WA-ranking 247th and came in at 70th after the 720 round with a respectable score of 679. He started a good elimination, scoring 30 points in the first end against Sergio Garrido from Spain. With 146 to 138 points, Nel advanced through to the 1/24 elimination where he then faced Page’s opponent Blazquez. In this round Blazquez shoot his best of 147 points to defeat Nel (138).
Meanwhile recurve specialist van Staden took his first steps in the compound men division. As non-ranked archer he ended his 720 round on the 79th place with a score of 672. In his elimination round, the promising youngster came up against Daniel Munoz from Columbia (ranked 34th). Munoz was a tough nut to crack and already had won a silver medal at World Cup Stage 2 on his home soil earlier this year.
However, van Staden managed to keep his Colombian counterpart at bay forcing a tie of 144 each. The round now had to be decided with a single arrow shoot-off. Both archers managed to shoot a 9, but Munoz’s arrow was closer to the centre, allowing him to advance to the round of 1/24. Of the 23 mens teams matches the national team came 18th just behind Germany. Louw got himself a final World Cup Stage 3 ranking of 33rd and Marais, van Staden and Page 57th.
Namibia is currently ranked 49th from 102 archery nations.