The only event today was the archery ranking rounds, where both the US men’s and women’s teams competed to seed themselves for the team competitions in addition to forming the individual seedings for those competitions.

The US men went first and posted a very solid score of 2019, good enough for a tie for 3rd. Unfortunately the US lost the tiebreaker on bullseyes and thus will be the 4th seed for the men’s team tournament tomorrow. On the positive side of things the US still gets a bye to the quarterfinals and will face the winner of #5 Japan/#12 India. On the negative side of things, the 4th spot means a semifinal matchup with #1 South Korea looks likely. South Korea was incredible today blowing away the world record of 2069 by scoring a 2087. It will take a big effort by the Americans tomorrow to have a chance to knock them off.  The US was really close to 2nd and 3rd (obviously) so a medal is a definite possibility.

Individually Brady Ellison led the way with 676 in 10th place. Jacob Wukie finished in 12th with 673 and Jake Kaminksi was 18th with 670.  All are very respectable scores and leaves most of them with real chances to reach the top 16. Kaminski will have to beat one of the Koreans if they advance (who finished 1-2-3) in the round of 16, but the other two will avoid them until the quarterfinals (Ellison) or the semifinals (Wukie). Wukie’s draw in particular is appealing.  He would only have to upset two competitors who finished 5 and 6 points ahead of him to get to the semifinals and earn a medal shot.

The round of 64 and 32 will be held on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Here are the round of 64 matchups and the likely round of 32 opponents.
Round of 64:
#10 Brady Ellison – #55 Mark Javier (Philippines)
#12 Jacob Wukie – #53 Jayanta Talukdar (India)
#18 Jake Kaminski – #47 Dan Olaru (Moldova)

Likely round of 32:
#10 Brady Ellison – #23 Taylor Worth (Australia)
#12 Jacob Wukie – #21 Bard Nesteng (Norway)
#18 Jake Kaminski – #15 Yu Ishizu (Japan)

As for the women, they actually had better results than the men! The women’s team came back late to finish 2nd with a score of 1979, giving them both the round of 16 bye and a path to the final that doesn’t involve facing Korea. The US will face the winner of #7 China/#10 Italy in the quarterfinals and then likely #3 Chinese Taipei in the semifinals.

As for the individuals the top score for the US belongs to Khatuna Lorig who put up a fantastic 669, just two points off of the lead and good for 4th place. Lorig can definitely shoot with the top competitors and is a big threat to medal. Miranda Leek and Jennifer Nichols went 14-15 with scores of 656 and 654 respectively. The only downside to their finish is those positions will force them to have likely round of 16 battles with the 2nd and 3rd place finishers instead of having those matchups in the quarterfinals. The good news is they are in different sections than each other and in a different section than Lorig. If they were going to medal they probably needed to defeat those competitors at some point, so why not in the round of 16!

The round of 64 and 32 will be held on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Here are the round of 64 matchups and the likely round of 32 opponents.
Round of 64:
#4 Khatuna Lorig – #61 Sherab Zam (Bhutan)
#14 Miranda Leek – #51 Kateryna Palekha (Ukraine)
#15 Jennifer Nichols – #50 Chekrovolu Swuro (India)

Likely round of 32:
#4 Khatuna Lorig – #29 Marie-Pier Beaudet (Canada)
#14 Miranda Leek – #19 Pia Lionetti (Italy)
#15 Jennifer Nichols – #18 Bishindee Urantungalag (Mongolia)