Taiwan’s men’s and women’s recurve archery teams on Wednesday shot their way to next year’s Tokyo Olympic Games by advancing to the quarter-finals of the Hyundai Archery World Cup in the Netherlands.
The third-seeded men’s team made a great start against France at the world championships, which act as the primary qualification tournament for next year’s Olympics, winning the first set 57-55, but were pegged back by France, who rallied and took the second set 55-56.
The game seesawed, with Taiwan winning the third set 55-54 to reclaim the lead, only to see France storm back again 54-55 in the fourth set.
As the game advanced to a thrilling shoot-off, with each player having one more shot, Taiwan’s Tang Chih-chun, Wei Chun-heng and Deng Yu-cheng managed to keep their cool and scored a near-perfect 29 to France’s 25 to secure the full three-athlete Olympic quotas.
“I was very nervous and my heart was pounding,” Tang said about the nail-biting finish. “I don’t look nervous? Don’t believe it. It’s fake.”
Meanwhile, the women’s team also got their three tickets to next year’s Olympics by shooting sets of 57, 55 and 55 points for a runaway victory.
“It’s the most important match I’ve ever shot,” said Peng Chia-mao, one of the archers. “I went step by step with everything and I performed well in the end.”
“We are always united as one, and we can gather strength from each other,” Peng said. “That’s how we stay calm.”
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