The men’s recurve archery team, made up of Matías Grande, Javier Rojas and Bruno Wing, was the main protagonist of the Saturday day of the last World Pre-Olympic of the specialty heading to Paris 2024, by winning one of the three Olympic places, in addition of the gold medal, which were disputed in Antalya, Turkey.
In an imposing setting and against rivals from all over the world, the Aztec trident gave a show of mettle and talent to face one of the last two opportunities to attend the great event (the final will be via the World Archery world ranking).
In the qualifying round, the national arrows took eighth place overall thanks to their 1,974 units obtained, which allowed them to automatically qualify for the first qualifying phase.
Their first “kill or be killed” duel was against the Spaniards Pablo Acha, Andrés Temiño and Ken Sánchez, who took the first episode 55-54. Despite the early setback, the Mexicans corrected themselves and took the next sets in a row to emerge victorious with a score of 6-2.
The breaking point was the quarterfinal duel against Dhiraj Bommaderava, Tarundeep Rai and Pravin Jadhav, from India. The Asians won the first two chapters decisively and were heading to the semifinals, but the Aztec archers consolidated an epic comeback; First they tied the score 4-4, and crowned the victory with three golden arrows.
In the match for the Olympic ticket, Grande, Rojas and Wing collided with Alex Wise, Tom Hall and Conor Hall, from Great Britain, who won the first episode, but the nationals repeated the dose of coming from behind to triumph 6-2 and thus ensure its presence in Paris 2024.
The finishing touch was against Chinese Taipei (Tang Chih, Tai Yu and Lin Zih), an opponent whom they beat 5-1 to climb to the top of the podium. In this way, the Mexican archery team will go with a full team to the Olympic Games, since the women qualified last year at the World Championships in Berlin.
