8 August 2009

Mission accomplished. Nicky Hunt, the Be Number 1 compound archer, believed that a top-six finish in the fourth and final leg of this year’s World Cup tournament, which is taking place in Shanghai, would be good enough to secure her qualification for next month’s Grand Final in Copenhagen.

And she was absolutely right. The Ipswich archer suffered a frustrating 113-112 quarter-final defeat to Denmark’s Camilla Soemod, but her fifth-place finish in the event ensured that Hunt would be one of the four qualifiers for Copenhagen in the women’s compound.

The Briton will be joined in Denmark by the winner of tomorrow’s final between Soemod and Anastasia Anastasio, although the loser of that contest will be eliminated. The last two spots will be distributed between Ivana Buden, Olga Bosch and Luzmary Guedez. They all have 49 points in the World Cup ranking and the tie will be broken based on the FITA world rankings after the event in Shanghai has concluded.

Hunt, who rounded off her preparation for China by becoming the first British woman to score 1,400 points in a FITA competition, secured her qualification through to the head-to-head eliminators in third place with an excellent total of 1,388 points.

And she then supplemented a resounding 114-99 success against China’s Xu Huanli in the round of 32 by beating Australia’s Rebecca Darby 115-112 to book her place in the last eight, where she faced Soemod.

Hunt started strongly enough against the Dane, leading 59-57 at the half-way point. However, the Briton endured a disappointing third quarter, shooting 9-8-8, while Soemod scored X10-10-7 to level matters up at 84-84 before claiming 10-10-9 in the fourth to secure the narrowest of victories.

“It was disappointing to lose in the quarter-finals after having a two-point cushion at the half-way stage,” said Hunt. “But I am thrilled to have qualified for the Grand Final. As nice as it would have been to win here in Shanghai, my primary objective was to qualify for Copenhagen. And I have achieved that.”

To complete an historic meeting for Britain, Simon Terry qualified for the Grand Final in the men’s recurve discipline, despite losing his first-round match. Although Britain has been represented at every Grand Final since the series began in 2006, this is the first occasion that two British archers have made it through.

Barry Eley, the GB performance manager, said: “It is fantastic news - and a fantastic achievement by both Nicky and Simon. I am absolutely chuffed to bits for both of them.”