Sweden Tops USA In Men’s Team Semifinal | sports
The team eliminations and individual semifinal events were held at the World Archery Championships at the NFAA Easton Yankton Archery Center on Friday.
Sweden and the USA played a close semi-final match which Sweden won 61-57.
Martin Ottosson, archer, performed well in the competition. He knew the challenge of playing a USA team with world champions Brady Ellison and Dave Cousins.
“They bring a lot of respect to the line with top-ranked archers and high qualifying scores,” Ottosson said. “But four goals is four goals. You can beat anyone if you do a good job, and that’s what we did.
“We saw that Brady and Dave can push the field to excellent scores. That was almost the highest ever (for individuals). I’m glad we were able to shake them up a little bit.”
In the team competitions, Ottosson admitted that he felt more pressure as an archer.
“It’s always a little extra nervous for me as a recurve to watch the team because the compound archer is normally one or two points up and down and the recurve also shoots pretty centered,” Ottosson said. “The key in team matches is often to keep the variable scores up because it’s much more difficult. We normally shoot lower scores all the time, so I’m very happy to perform at the level and take the point (and the win).
According to Cousins, it is tough to beat Sweden in any team competition because the quality of barebow archers in the region is second to none.
“Sweden has an enormous barebow history and a large barebow society that stretches back decades. The core knowledge of that discipline is developed and domiciled in that region of Scandinavia. Anytime you can run with these guys, maybe get lucky, and sometimes best them, you’ve done well. Unfortunately, for us today, this was not one of those occasions.”
Ottosson added that the lack of wind compared to Thursday played to Sweden’s advantage.
“Dave Cousins and Brady Ellison are really good shooters,” he said. “They tend to shoot a lot in the wind. They’re used to shooting in windy finals while we often shoot in the forest among the trees (in Sweden). It’s not normally windy so I definitely prefer it.”
While it was a chilly morning, Ottosson was pleased with how the conditions turned out on Friday.
“Today is perfect for us Swedes,” he said. “It’s like a good summer day today.”
In the individual qualifier on Wednesday, Ottosson finished fourth. He said individual events and team events require two completely different mindsets.
“It feels a lot different when you’re depending on the other two (archers in your group) and they’re depending on you,” he said. “It’s just an arrow that is perhaps the biggest difference. There is no room to correct anything with two good (points of) sex. If you make a bad shot, you just make a bad shot and you move on to the next one. If you shoot a good shot, you move on to the next one. You build up the feeling along the course.”
The Swedish team hung a flag from a tree to feel a little more at home. Each archer could bring family and close friends to the event.
– We feel the support from the audience, even if it is not that big, said Ottosson. “(Family and close friends) are here so it’s great to have support.”
Although Cousins was disappointed that the USA team could not make it, he will still have a shot at three medals this weekend in both individual and team events. With good qualifying points, Cousins has put himself in a position to succeed.
“It’s just time to go out and confirm all the reasons why you qualified in the first place,” he said. “(The goal is to) go out and shoot the semi-final well. It’s nice to have been out on (although) maybe not on the same target, to get a feel for the weather and what the atmosphere is like (so I can) bring that knowledge into the (individual semifinal) match.”
The team finals will take place on Saturday and the individual finals will take place on Sunday at the NFAA Easton Archery Center.
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