After her silver medal finish at Face2Face UK in 2011, Naomi Jones went one better this year and took the win in ladies’ compound, while Reo Wilde continues his run of fantastic form and picked up the gold in men’s compound. Carlo Schmitz of Germany and Annemarie der Kinderen of the Netherlands picked up the top honours in the recurve classes.
Anne Marie Laursen took an early head start in ladies’ recurve, taking 585 points and all ten possible set points from her group, but seasoned international Natalia Valeeva, and recent World Field champions Elena Richter and Naomi Folkard weren’t far behind her. Another two rounds of group matches left Annemarie der Kinderen, Anne Marie Laursen, Elena Richter and Louise Laursen in the semi- finals. Natalia Valeeva, despite scoring 585 across her matches – the highest score of anyone in this category for this second group round – didn’t accrue enough match points to get through. Annemarie der Kinderen defeated Louise Laursen 4-2 on set points, taking the first three sets, and holding it together to win the final end after a shoot-off to advance to the gold medal final.
In the other semi-final, Elena Richter took an early lead over Anne Marie Laursen, but some strong shooting from her Danish opponent meant Richter took the last two sets to go through to the final 4-2. Louise Laursen and Anne Marie Laursen met in the bronze medal match, and it was Anne Marie that took the lead, but Louise managed to fight back, taking the next three sets and making it 3-2 in her favour. A shoot-off in the sixth set brought it level at three-all, and a perfect 10-10-10 to finish gave the bronze honours to Anne Marie Laursen.
Annemarie der Kinderen took the gold medal in front of a home crowd against Elena Richter, taking the first set and the last three in order to secure a 4-2 victory for the title of Face2Face 2012 champion.
Carlo Schmitz set the standard for the men’s recurve pre-elimination round, winning the maximum ten points from his group with a score of 592, and he put in a 590 in the second group elimination rounds, but raised it to a 595 to qualify for the semi-finals. Alongside him were Germany’s Sebastien Rohrberg, Sjef van den Berg and Daniel Hartmann, while France’s Romain Girouille and Thomas Aubert just missed out on the set points they needed.
In the first semi-final, Sjef van den Berg took on Sebastien Rohrberg – and despite only putting six arrows out of the 10 ring, Rohrberg only dropped four, and won two out of the pair’s three shoot-offs to advance to the gold medal match 6-4. The other semi-final between Carlo Schmitz and Daniel Hartmann wasn’t quite such a close affair – Carlo Schmitz began with a blistering run of nine consecutive 10s to win the first three matches with perfect scores, leaving Daniel Hartmann with no chance to pull anything back. However, two nines in the fourth set allowed Hartmann to take him to a shoot-off, but Schmitz won it with a 10 to Hartmann’s nine, putting him through with a score of four sets to none.
In the bronze medal match between Sjef van den Berg and Daniel Hartmann, van den Berg stamped his intent on the opening by winning the first two with three 10s, but Hartmann matched that in the third set to beat a 27 from van den Berg, and the fourth set had to be decided by a shoot-off, which van den Berg won, along with the fifth set, giving him the medal.
The gold medal match between Sebastian Rohrberg and Carlo Schmitz started in Schmitz’s favour as he took the first two sets,
but although Rohrberg put in two perfect 30s, they were matched by Schmitz and he only managed to win one of the shoot-offs. A wobbly seven in the final end meant he had to settle for the silver with Schmitz taking a well- deserved gold.
Naomi Jones improved on her result from the 2011 event by taking gold in ladies’ compound, despite being the last person to get through the first group round thanks to a score of 569 – the cutoff point. She continued to up her game through the next two group rounds and win the matches when it mattered to get through to the final four, while previous high-scorers Inge Enthoven and Albina Loginova didn’t gain the necessary set points to progress.
In the semi-finals, Naomi Jones and Kristina Berger won alternate sets to stand the score at three-all going into the final three arrows. Jones had it by a point however, and would be going through to the gold medal final. Ivana Buden took on Runa Grydeland for the other spot in the final, and after a tight set of matches, none of which was won by more than a single point, Ivana Buden emerged the winner 6-4.
In the bronze medal final, Runa Grydeland took a two-set lead over her German opponent, but Berger got into her stride and won the next four to claim the medal 6-2. It was a similar story in the gold medal match, as Naomi Jones started off on the back foot to Ivana Buden, losing the first match then losing the shoot-off on the second. However,
solid shooting after that ensured she won the next four matches without having to go to another single-arrow decider, making her F2F 2012 champion.
Braden Gellenthien matched the world record for a FITA 18 with a score of 599 over his first five matches, taking all ten match points available and indicating he was on top form. By the time it came to narrowing down the last four competitors however, he was level on score with Duncan Busby, although Busby stole the march on leading the rankings thanks to two more set points. Dave Cousins and Reo Wilde made up the top four.
Duncan Busby beat Dave Cousins in one of the semi-final matches, winning the last set on a shoot-off with a 10 that was closer to the centre to end it 4-2 in his favour. Reo Wilde wasn’t about to let Braden Gellenthien get
Reo Wilde never missed the 10, putting Duncan Busby second
the better of him again after their gold medal match in the World Cup Finals, and despite the match standing at two-all four sets in, he won the next two sets with tens in the shoot-off to secure his place in the final.
In the bronze match, Dave Cousins shot only three nines during the ends of three arrows, but Braden Gellenthien only shot two, and he managed to win two out of the pair’s three shoot-offs to take the bronze medal. Reo Wilde started the compound gold medal final in dominating style and never let up, shooting 18 10s over five matches and three shoot-offs. Never dropping out of the top scoring ring, there was little Duncan Busby could do, as despite matching Wilde on three ends of the five, only one shoot- off went his way and he took the silver as it finished 4-1 to Wilde.