Taiwan’s female archers made disappointing exits from the individual competition at the Olympics yesterday.
Yuan Shu-chi (袁叔琪), who finished fourth in the individual competition in Athens in 2004 was knocked out in the second round of the 64-woman draw yesterday by China’s Zhang Juanjuan 110-105.
“I could never get the feel of my release point. I tried to do my best but instead was consistently off,” said Yuan, who was unable to hold back the tears after her defeat.
“Even though I kept making adjustments, I still wasn’t accurate. I was even surprised [by how poorly I performed],” she said.
Yuan, who finished sixth out of 64 archers in Saturday’s qualification round, struggled the entire morning, shooting only one 10 against Zhang and three in an earlier first round 104-101 victory over Alexandra Feeney of Australia.
She stayed level with Zhang after the first three arrows, but four eightss in her next six arrows left her too far behind to mount a late comeback.
Yuan’s teammate Wu Hui-ju, (吳惠如) along with Yuan a member of Taiwan’s silver-medal winning team in Athens, collapsed in her round of 64 match yesterday afternoon, losing 104-98 to Leidys Brito of Venezuela.
The normally consistent Wu shot two seven’s in her first six arrows and never recovered.
Taiwan’s third archer, Wei Pi-hsiu (魏碧銹) went down 108-99 to Alison Williamson of Great Britain.
Wei shot three seven’s and four eight’s to hand Williamson an easy victory.
The women archers had been tipped to win a medal in the team competition and Yuan and Wu were both expected to perform well in the individual competition.
Taiwanese coach Lin Cheng-hsien (林政賢) said that the results were unexpected and that the pressure of expectation may have weighed too heavily on the trio
The archery team had been considered a good bet for a medal before the Games.
South Korea’s top-seeded trio of Park Sung-hyun, Yun Ok-hee and Joo Hyun-jung coasted through to the last 16.
The three easily got through the first round before Park defeated German Anja Hitzler 112-107 in the second. Yun beat Canadian Marie-Pier Beaudet 114-107 and Joo slipped by Italian Natalia Valeeva.
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