Excellent day for the Blues this Thursday in Rome (Italy) at the Para-archery European Championship. Maxime Guérin and Guillaume Toucoullet will try to get bronze in the compound bow and open recurve bow in the individual event.
He will not have missed much, or rather a point. Beaten 140 to 139 in the semi-finals, Maxime Guerin sees the European title slip away from him. The French archer will try to reach the podium in the bronze medal match against the Turk on Saturday Bulent Korkmaz.
The Frenchman won before that in 1/16th 136 points to 135 before accelerating in the next match to beat the Belgian Piotr Van Montaiguthen Italian Giampaolo Cancelli 142 points to 139.
Maxime Guerin: “When I arrived in Rome, I really bet on the team and the mix. Individually, I had lost the habit of shooting so many matches. The objective was to regain confidence in myself and resume the habit of winning matches, and having a series of duels enabled me not to reproduce certain mistakes.
Today we had a break between the first game and the second, luckily for me. It allowed me to get back into it and find my shot. On my semi-final, I didn’t miss much, just a little more serenity on the shooting range. I struggled to do 100% of what I know how to do.”
This morning, Guillaume Toucoullet secured a place in the finals arena. He first won 6-2 in the round of 16 against the Italian Giuseppe Verzini then 6-0 in ¼ against the Pole Lukasz Ciszek, ranked No. 2 in qualifying. In the semi-finals, he narrowly failed to reach the final, beaten by the Romanian Eugen Patru 6-4. On Saturday, he will face the Italian Stefano Travisani for the bronze medal in open recurve.
For other French open compound archers, Daniel Lelou bows in 1/16th on arrow of shoot-off against the Czech Leos Bartos. Same sentence for Thierry Joussaume who is eliminated 139 points to 135 by the Spaniard Fernando Gale Montorio.
On his side, Julie Rigault Chupin won her first duel 136 points to 130 against the Polish Dorota Duka before conceding defeat in ¼ 138 points to 143 against the Italian Maria Andrea Virgilio.
Tomorrow, the French team will try to win its first medal of this European championship during the team finals. Maxim Guérin and Daniel Lelou will draw the bronze final against the United Kingdom at 12:20 p.m.
