Olympics Preview
The runners and riders for Tokyo.
In Paris towards the end of June, there was a final, almost desperate scramble for archery places available for Tokyo. In the end, more than 70 countries made the journey to France for a three-day qualifier. There were 44 men’s teams and 34 women’s teams trying their luck, despite overwhelming odds.
The competition ended up awarding 14 women’s places and 16 men’s places, including three teams each for men and women, with the last individual places scrapped out among the smaller archery nations and the handful of big ones who had come up empty-handed in one column. A couple more were added by North Korea’s refusal to attend the Games. The men’s individual qualifier tournament was won by the imposing Galzan Bazarzhapov of Russia, and the women’s was won by the surprise finalist of Guatemala, Madalina Amaistroaie of Romania.
There were no huge shocks with the teams that won, but several in the teams that lost, in particular Italy, whose men’s team failed to gain a place for the first time in the history of the modern Olympics. The Italian women’s team barely scraped in via the last chance bronze medal match. Italy remains perhaps the biggest European archery nation and, after leaving Rio empty-handed, more recriminations will surely be starting shortly.
The much-improved German men’s team and the Spanish men – winners in Guatemala this year – also will not be sending teams, and for the second Olympics in a row there will be no Russian men’s team. There are also no team places for the French and Indian women, neither of whom could get through a tough field.
As Bow went to press, one place was likely to be reawarded. Côte d’ivoire had landed a single women’s place at the African Games in 2019, however, none of their current women have been able to make the minimum qualifying score – 605 on a 720 round – the deadline for which expires towards the end of June.
On the last day, all the nations without any current spots scrapped for an individual place. Marie Horackova of the Czech Republic gained a spot; her mother Barbora shot for the same country at Beijing 2008. Evangelia Psarra of
Greece grabbed a last-minute place to attend her sixth Olympics, joining the exclusive club of Ilario di Buo, Natalia Valeeva and Alison Williamson as those who have shot at six Games.
BLINDED BY THE LIGHT
Some of the archers at Tokyo 2020 will have to shoot in darkness in the elimination rounds. Sunset is around 18.50, and the field will need floodlights up and on a while before that. Shooting on the Monday continues until 8pm. The situation was the same in Rio, and athletes get both day and night practice sessions to acclimatise.
There is much discussion about the various risks of floodlight shooting, best articulated by a colourful quote from Italy’s Mauro Nespoli in 2016: “The unfavourable conditions are given by the early darkness; we are not used to competing under artificial light and we’ve found a number of problems in this sense. The artificial lights create a series of problems and references to the viewfinder while shooting.
“This has bothered me a lot in that race, and then I carried on through the winter training with artificial light or in the dark in order to understand how they change the feelings, grasp the nuances and not get caught unprepared, understanding if the perceived through sight is real or a dangerous game of shadows...”
heading east
In previous Olympic years we have been able to see the full archery peloton together and competing at the World Cups prior; not so this year. The three big Asian teams: Korea, China and Chinese Taipei – the name under which Taiwan competes in international sport – have not competed with each other internationally nor sent any archers to the World Cup events, out of COVID-19 or quarantine concerns. (The Asia Cup, held in Gwangju, Korea, at the beginning of June, only featured Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Bangladesh and Tajikistan, despite the grandiose production laid on.)
“KOREA REMAIN THE BEST ARCHERS IN THE WORLD. BUT THERE ARE ALWAYS A FEW DOUBTS”
Chinese Taipei are widely seen as the biggest threat to Korean dominance at the Games. Their men’s and women’s teams have often been the only ones to better Korea, notably at the World Championships in 2019. As we haven’t seen them out in the wild yet, let alone facing the white hats, it’s difficult to get a handle on any future result. Taipei were reportedly using ‘virtual reality’ to try to replicate Olympic conditions, in the absence of real international matches.
It seems likely that Korea are still the favourites for all five gold medals on offer, though the clean sweep we all saw in Rio is perhaps less certain to happen again – even if that is the reported expectations of the national Olympic commitee. Certainly Brady Ellison, if he continues to shoot as he has done for the past couple of years, is a major challenger for men’s gold. .
We know Korea will bring their A game; they remain the best archers in the world. But there are always a few doubts. The Korean men’s team have been more vulnerable than the women’s team in recent major tournaments. Three of the six competitors are young and have little international experience. As George Tekmitchov put it on the Easton archery podcast recently, they will all be “jumping into the pool cold”, without any rhythm of competition built up and without battle experience, however much money is spent. The Games are a large and overwhelming experience for many athletes, although no doubt the KAA and the national committee will carefully protect their charges, as one of the country’s vital Olympic medal ‘bankers’. And as Park Sung-hyun, one of the country’s greatest Olympians, said elsewhere on these pages (see p21), the women’s team is perhaps the best they have ever sent.
Several commentators thought that Korea would fall off their perch a little at Rio 2016. Instead they had their most successful archery Games ever, although not without some luck falling their way. With Covid still threatening to upend portions of these Games, it’s too difficult to predict what will happen – although betting against Korea to come home with gold will probably not make you rich.
filling up
The Tokyo 2020 organising committee have decided that the sports venues will be allowed to fill to 50% capacity for the Games, or a somewhat arbitrary 10,000 max. The archery finals venue at Yumenoshima Park was due to hold 5,600, a little smaller than the Sambodromo in Rio (6,000 capacity) and Lords in London (6,500). You’d think that 2300 people would be able to make some noise, assuming they sell all available tickets, but unfortunately they are asking people to not cheer or shout, for fear of spreading the you-know-what.
Japanese audiences are not generally known for their boisterousness but, just in case, the organisers have also banned alcohol being sold at the venues (despite one of the sponsors being the brewer Asahi) as well as getting autographs, waving towels and even giving high fives. In Japan’s summer heat, spectators will be allowed to remove their masks at outdoor venues if they can ensure there is a two-metre gap between them and other spectators. The Associated Press described it in a recent headline as the ‘No-fun Olympics’.
AWKWARD TIMING
In the UK, if you want to be watching the archery live on the red button, be prepared for an early start; Japan is eight hours ahead of British Summer Time, which means that the archery gold medal matches, all of which take place around 5pm in Japan, will be live at 9am over breakfast. A nice thing to wake up to, but if you want to watch a particular eliminations match (say, one of Team GB) they will be starting at 1am on Tuesday, with quarterfinals matches on medal days beginning around 6am UK time. It’s a tough ask even for dedicated Olympics fans.
The full competition schedule can be found on olympics.com – BBC scheduling for the Games has not yet been released. Individual match scheduling can be found on ianseo.net after the ranking rounds have been completed on Friday 23 July.
MIX AND MATCH
For the first time at a modern Olympics, archery will get five medal podiums, when the mixed team competition will be contested for the first time ever at a Summer Games. It is the first medal to be awarded, on Saturday the 24th, the day after the ranking round and the Opening Ceremony. It marks the biggest change to the Olympic archery programme since team events were introduced at Seoul 1988, followed by head-to-head competition at Barcelona in 1992. The total of five gold medals will be the most awarded to Olympic archery since 1920.
A key Olympic selling point of the mixed team to the IOC is that it does not increase the overall number of athletes competing.
Rio hosted just over 11,000 athletes from
207 countries, and the IOC is focused on not increasing that number at future Games, as part of a long-term programme to reduce the costs of hosting. The cap on the number of athletes is often cited as one of the larger obstacles to the often-mentioned project of bringing compound archery into the Olympics.
It is hoped that the mixed team event will allow smaller archery nations to field competitive pairs at an Olympics even if they haven’t been able to qualify full teams, increasing exposure and medal chances. It might just end up being the most interesting medal of all.
Bow's Olympic coverage issue is out in August.