ARCHERY: The Australian men’s archery team have made Olympic history in Rio after winning bronze at the Sambodromo. 

Taylor Worth, Alec Potts and Ryan Tyack combined to defeat China in the bronze medal match of the men’s team competition to secure the nation’s first ever Olympic medal in a team event. 

The trio bounced back from their semi-final loss to eventual champions Korea to defeat the Chinese with the accuracy and poise that they have worked so hard to perfect.  

"It's a great experience to be able to do that for the country," Worth, who was born in Perth and now lives in Brisbane, said.

"The three of us boys have trained together for so long now and all we had to do was replicate what we did in training.

"Nothing special out here, just do normal shots and we were able to do that.

"Its just getting the ball rolling for the country, we're just the start and everyone else will pick up their Games and hopefully this spurs them on for their competition."

The team claimed fourth in the ranking round to move directly through to the quarter-finals. It was there that they came back from the brink against the French team to make the final four with a 5-3 win.

They shot extremely well against Korea but still went down 0-6.

With the bronze medal on the line there was no room for errors and that is what Australia delivered. Potts, 20, from Melbourne and Tyack, 25, from the Sunshine Coast shot perfect 10s to secure the win.

Potts was thrilled with the result.

"It has really sunk in yet but it feels awesome and I can only imagine it will get better from here," Potts, from Melbourne, said. 

Tyack was equally elated.

"I feel great! The environment of the whole team on the plane and in the Village and dining hall has been great. To take the lead and win the first medal is a very special moment."

Australia have previously won two Olympic medals in the individual archery competitions with Simon Fairweather winning gold at the Sydney 2000 Games before Tim Cuddihy won bronze four years later in Athens. 

The young Australian will contest the individual competition in two days time in Rio and they have big plans there too. Worth was ninth om Olympic debut in London 2012 and said that experience helped him in Rio and he had passed on as much as he could to his Olympic rookie teammates.

"We've still got our individual performances to go so we can't get too carried away with this. Once we finish when can get together as a group and realise what we have achieved and that will be a day to remember," Worth said.

Matt Bartolo
olympics.com.au