Taiwan mixed team wins compound gold at Archery World Cup event

Taipei, June 13 (CNA) Taiwan's Chang Cheng-wei (張正韋) and Huang I-jou (黃逸柔) won a gold medal in the mixed team compound bow archery World Cup event in Turkey on Saturday, edging out a team from Denmark.

In the championship round, Chang and Huang edged the Danish team of Mathias Fullerton and Tanja Gellenthien 158-157 to secure a victory and win gold after shooting a perfect score of 40 in the final end of four arrows.

After the first two ends, the Taiwanese duo were tied with their Danish rivals 79-79, but they fell behind 119-118 after the third end, but two nines in the last four arrows by the Danes gave the Taiwanese an opening to win.

Chang shot eight consecutive 10s during the championship round, which men's compound coach Lin Che-Wei (林哲瑋) said demonstrated his composure under pressure.

Huang, 36, a leading member of Taiwan's women's compound archery team, had previously partnered with Chen Chieh-lun (陳界綸), another Taiwanese archer, to win a mixed team gold medal at the 2022 World Cup Gwangju stage.

The strong partnership may have Olympic-sized implications.

Traditionally, Olympic competition has been reserved exclusively for the recurve bow. But the compound bow will be making its debut at the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028, with the mixed team event set to be featured as a medal event, according to the sports governing body.

In the individual recurve bow events in Turkey, no Taiwanese in either the men's or women's competition advanced beyond the round of 16 in their respective competitions.

The Taiwanese men's team, however, won bronze, while the women's team and mixed team both lost in the quarterfinals of their respective events to the South Koreans.