The Race to the Beijing Olympics!
Leipzig – 12 July 2007
On Friday afternoon, the team events for the Recurve division will take place. This team event offers 24 places for men and 24 places for women. Additionally, 16 places for men and women will be attributed based on today’s individual results. Let’s see who will qualify for the Olympic Games.
Let’s first recap the rules of the Olympic qualifications:
Ø The eight highest ranked teams for both Recurve Men and Women (excluding China) will qualify for three individual places per team—a total of 24 places.
Ø The 16 top ranked individuals, from countries (Member Associations) other than those mentioned above, qualify for a place (total 16).
Ø All places are attributed to NOCs and not to individuals. There will be subsequent qualifiers early in 2008 to increase the number of archers to 64 men and 64 women. The host nation, China, automatically qualifies three places per gender for Beijing.
Let’s now run a simulation based on the individual results of today and assuming that the top teams in qualifications will win on Friday. Since China is in the top eight teams, we will also consider that a ninth team qualifies. Of course, this is only a simulation. Everything thing can change on Friday when the archers shoot the team matches!
Recurve Men 
According to the individual results today, two archers from Russia, Ukraine, Malaysia and USA would qualify. One archer each from Sweden, Denmark and Iran are certain to qualify because they finished in the top 16. Bulgaria, Germany, Turkey, Romania and Belarus would also qualify.
Let’s take some scenarios for tomorrow:
Ø If the heavily favoured Korea is upset in the first round, three archers would still qualify based on the individual results. However archers from Turkey, Romania and Belarus would then no longer as individuals.
Ø If countries like Great Britain, Japan, Australia, Canada loses in the first round, two archers would still qualify but the list of individual qualified archers would change a lot.
Ø If countries like Italy or Chinese Taipei (silver medallist at the Olympic Games 2004) lose in the first round, no archers would qualify!
In the event of a tie in a team match, there is a 3 arrow tie-break. The ninth team in the ranking will be the one that has the highest score of the first round losing teams.
Recurve Women
The top nine teams of the qualifications are Korea, P.R. China, Poland, Great Britain, Russia, Italy, Chinese Taipei, Japan and France. All these countries would secure three places.
According to the individual results today, Ukraine is sure to qualify for two places. Countries like Georgia, DPR Korea, Netherlands and India would qualify for two places each. Countries like the USA, Kazakhstan, Colombia, Denmark, Greece and Venezuela could qualify one archer each.
Let’s take some scenarios for tomorrow:
Ø If Korea and Poland are upset in the first round three archers would still qualify based on the individual results. France has the same chance if Korea and Poland don’t lose in the first round. However, if this is the case, archers from Venezuela, India, Greece and Denmark would no longer qualify.
Ø If countries like Russia, Italy or Japan lose in the first round two archers would probably still qualify.
Ø If countries like Chinese Taipei or Great Britain lose in the first round at least one archer would still qualify.
Tin the event of a tie in a team match, there is a 3- arrow tie-break. The ninth team in the ranking will be the one that has highest score of the first round qualifying teams.
Whatever the case may be, the best way to secure three Olympic places is to win the first round on Friday afternoon.
Didier Miéville
FITA Communication
Reference : http://www.archery.org/
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