Recurve men ran closer to the form book, with top seeds Brady Ellison and Florian Unruh both in the final, to face two Israeli Olympians, Roy Dror and Itay Shanny, with Dror putting in a monster score of 102 in the semi.
“I feel amazing, it was very difficult for me. There was a lot of mental challenges today but I managed to do a lot of good shots and go out and shoot a very high score which I’m very happy about. Tomorrow I’m going to do everything exactly the same.” said Dror.
Dror has been posting high level target results – especially indoors – for some years, but this is only his second field competition. “I had a competition in Luxembourg a few weeks ago, so its new to me but I started doing it so I could, in the future, participate in the World Games and get a world ranking – and now I will keep doing it!”
In recurve women, top seed Roberta Di Francesco made the last four but there was an upset as France‘s Audrey Machinet, the tenth seed, pushed out the other Italian, Chiara Rebagliati in the last eight.
Slovenia‘s Zana Pintaric and the USA‘s Casey Kaufhold, in her debut world field competition, rounded out Saturday’s final sheet.
Compound women saw the top three seeds and the same three podium finishers in Lac Lac Biche, Paige Pearce, Ella Gibson, and Amanda Mlinaric all come through their matches to make the final four with some huge scores. They will be joined by the 13th seed, Austria’s veteran Brigitte Steiner.
Gibson was acutely aware of the past, especially her visit in 2022. “Last time I came to Yankton I made a final four and I finished fourth so I really liked it before, but with them of course every competition your aim is always to win. I know there’s some great archers here I’ll shoot my game and hopefully it’ll be enough to win this time,” said the reigning Vegas Shoot champion.
