Taipei: Taiwan's Chang Cheng-wei and Huang I-jou clinched a gold medal in the mixed team compound bow category at the Archery World Cup event held in Turkey on Saturday. The duo triumphed over the Danish team, consisting of Mathias Fullerton and Tanja Gellenthien, with a narrow victory of 158-157. The Taiwanese team secured their win by shooting a perfect score of 40 in the final end of four arrows.
According to Focus Taiwan, the championship round was tightly contested, with Chang and Huang initially tied with their Danish counterparts at 79-79 after the first two ends. However, they trailed 119-118 after the third end. The turning point came when the Danish team shot two nines in the last four arrows, allowing Chang and Huang to capitalize and claim the gold medal.
Chang's performance was particularly noteworthy, as he shot eight consecutive 10s during the championship round. Men's compound coach Lin Che-Wei highlighted Chang's remarkable composure under pressure as a key factor in their success. Huang, 36, is a prominent member of Taiwan's women's compound archery team and had previously won a mixed team gold medal at the 2022 World Cup Gwangju stage with fellow Taiwanese archer Chen Chieh-lun.
The victory could have significant implications for the future, especially with the compound bow set to make its Olympic debut at the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028. The mixed team event will be featured as a medal event, as confirmed by the sport's governing body.
In other events in Turkey, Taiwanese archers in the individual recurve bow competition failed to advance beyond the round of 16 in both the men's and women's categories. However, the Taiwanese men's team secured a bronze medal, while the women's team and mixed team were both eliminated in the quarterfinals by South Korean opponents.