Celebrations from the teams from Austria, Estonia, Turkey, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Ukraine: The shooters who prevailed at the European Olympic qualification tournament in Essen and with an individual place for the Olympic archery tournament come from these six archery nations were rewarded in Paris.
In the women’s category, Elisabeth Straka (AUT), Reena Parna (EST) and Elif Berra Gokkir (TUR) won. Straka and Parna won their semi-finals 6-0 and 6-4 respectively and thus had their ticket to the French capital in their pockets. The 6:2 (25-26, 29-24, 29-28, 28-27) in the final for Straka was only relevant for the result lists. “It’s a dream come true for me, I still can’t believe it. I’m always stronger when I’m under pressure, and that was the case today. I am currently the only female archer in Austria, so I have no chance of winning the quota place through the team. Every match was amazing, it’s my greatest success. “So far, only two Austrian female archers have qualified for the Olympics in Olympic history (that was Ursula Valenta in 1984 and Laurence Baldauff in 2016, editor’s note),” Straka cheered. For Parnat, however, it was almost routine: “It is the fourth time that I have qualified for the Olympics. One time I didn’t go and that really hurt. I have experience with these types of tournaments. I knew I had to give it my all here and I did. The feeling of qualifying is always like the first time, it’s incredible. The first time I went to the Olympics I didn’t win a match, the second time I won a match and of course now I want more.”
It got loud in the bronze match between the 17-year-old Turkish woman Gokkir and the Dutchwoman Quinty Roeffen, who was one year older. The Turkish woman was already 4-0 ahead, the Dutch equaled and forced a play-off. In this Gokkir presented a ten, which Roeffen could not counter with a nine. “I am speechless and happy about the quota place but I hope that we can still get the team quota place,” said the 17-year-old.
In the men’s competition, the quota place winners were already clear after the semi-finals, as two Dutchmen, Steve Wijler and Senna Roos, had reached the semi-finals. Since only one place is awarded per nation, Ziga Ravnika (SLO) and Mykhailo Usach (UKR) were also happy about the Paris ticket. “I’ve already been to the Olympics, but I’m feeling much better now. It’s hard to get there and I just want to get a good result. My quota place is very important for the whole country and my family. After being alone at the first Olympic Games, I don’t want to take part alone in Paris. We are a really good team. Let’s do it,” said Ravnika, who won the bronze match 6:5 (28-28, 27-29, 28-27, 28-27, 27-29, 9:8) against Ukrainian Usach. However, he was by no means grieved, after all, he too had achieved great things: “The feeling is indescribable because it is the first time that I have taken part in such a competition. Paris would be the first games for me, but of course I hope that we and the team qualify.” The same applies to the strong Dutch, who stood side by side in the gold match and proved their strength there too. The world number eight Wijler defeated his 21-year-old teammate Roos 6:2 (29-26, 30-28, 29-30, 30-29) and said afterwards: “The quota place was our goal and we did it. I am confident that we can still win the team quota place because we have a good team. We were in Tokyo as a team and I would like to do it together again. We deserve it.”
On Tuesday, May 7th, there will be official training for the European Archery Championships, which begins with qualification on May 8th. Then there are a total of twelve German archers – six with recurve bows and six with compound bows. Shooting will take place on the Am Hallo sports field up to and including May 10th, and the medals will then be awarded on May 11th and 12th in the Zollverein stadium. Tickets for the final stadium are available at www.Ticketmaster.de