Australia’s Taylor Worth has progressed through to the quarter-finals of the individual competition at Rio’s Sambodromo.
ARCHERY: Australia’s Taylor Worth has progressed through to the quarter-finals of the individual competition at Rio’s Sambodromo.
In rainy conditions Worth defeated Antonio Fernandez of Spain 7-3 to move through to the final eight of the competition and keep his hopes of a second Olympic medal alive.
Worth shot consistently throughout winning the first and third sets 27-26 and finishing level in the second at 27-27 to set up a 5-1 lead (first to six wins).
Fernandez fought back to win the fourth 29-26 before Worth shot two tens and a nine to clinch the match with a 29-27 set win.
Ever the perfectionist, Worth was happy to be moving on but not happy with how he shot.
“I made too many mistakes, I was a little bit sloppy shooting but I got the job done,” Worth said.
“I’m not happy with how I shot but it is one more round down and now I’ve got to reset, fix my mistakes and be stronger in the next round.”
The 25-year old will now take on Bonchan Ku who was a part of the gold medal winning Korean trio in the team event. The match will take place Friday 3:26pm (AEST 4:26 am Saturday) with the semi-finals and medal matches to follow shortly after.
“Everyone is going to be a hard match no matter who you take on.
“We were in the top 16 and now we are in the top 16 so you can’t afford to make mistakes.”
Worth finished 14th in the ranking round before defeating Ahmed El-Nemr of Egypt 6-0 and Venzuela’s Elias Malave 6-4 to make the last 16.
The victory sees the West Australian better his individual result from London where he bowed out in the round of 16.
In other matches the Netherlands Sjef Van Den Berg (4th ranked after the ranking round) progressed along with Korea’s Bonchan Ku (6th) and Seungyun Lee (12th), France’s Jean-Charles Valladont (8th), Italy’s Maura Nespoli (16th), Japan’s Takaharu Furukawa (7th) and Brady Ellison of the USA (2nd).
Worth, along with teammates Alec Potts and Ryan Tyack, won team bronze six days ago. It was the nation’s first Olympic archery team medal.
Australia has previously won two individual Olympic archery medals with Simon Fairweather winning gold at the Sydney 2000 Games while Tim Cuddihy claimed bronze four years later in Athens.
Matt Bartolo
olympics.com.au
