Taiwanese teenage archer bags silver in shoot-off against South Korean Olympian

Taipei, Oct. 19 (CNA) Seventeen-year-old Taiwanese archer Hsu Hsin-tzu (許芯慈) won a silver medal on Sunday in the recurve women's individual event at the Nanjing 2025 Hyundai Archery World Cup Final, which pitted her against an Olympic gold medalist.

Hsu, the only Taiwanese archer who qualified for the world cup final this year, first outshot Li Jiaman (李佳蔓) of China 6-5 in the quarterfinal, then beat Casey Kaufhold of the United States 7-1 in the semifinal.

When Hsu, 17, advanced to the final, she came up against An San of South Korea, who won three gold medals at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in the women's individual, women's team, and mixed team events.

The Olympic gold medalist dominated the first four sets, leaving the Taiwanese high school student behind 5-3.

In the fifth set, Hsu continued to trail, with the match at 6-4, as the two competitors each received a point from a tied 28-points set scored with three arrows each.

However, target judge Laura Lynne Churchill deemed that Hsu had actually beaten An in the final end 28-27, which tied the match 5-5 and led to a single-arrow shoot-off.

During the extended shoot-off, Hsu hit the seven-point ring, while An landed on the eight-point ring to take gold.

"Participating in the world cup final for the first time was nerve-wracking, but I have confidence in myself," Hsu said after the competition. "Although I fell short this time, I believe I will be able to get back up soon."

It was the second time in six years that a Taiwanese competitor won silver in the women's recurve competition at the annual Archery World Cup Final, following Tan Ya-ting's (譚雅婷) second-place finish in 2019.

Hsu's coach Wu Ying-nan (吳英男) told CNA that her improvement in the sport was obvious during the world cup final, and he is confident that she will continue to improve.

In the lead-up to Saturday's achievement, the New Taipei Municipal San Min High School student had won a silver medal in the recurve women's individual event at the Archery World Cup in Spain, and gold in the women's recurve team event at the World Archery Championships in Gwangju, South Korea.