Saturday morning is set to be dominated by Turkiye and USA as both the countries’ respective compound teams shall face each other in the men’s and women’s finals at Shanghai 2026 – the second stage of the 2026 Hyundai World Cup.
Türkiye’s Hazal Burun, Defne Cekmak and Emine Rabia Oguz bettered number one world ranked compound women team, Mexico, by four points 232-228 and they will face USA’s Alexis Ruiz, Olivia Dean and newcomer Kaylee Gurney who pipped Korea 232-231.
Although Türkiye averaged an arrow at 9.67 – a feat in itself considering the swirling wind has increased significantly inside Yuanshen Sports Centre since yesterday – USA will be the favourites having already come close to gold in Puebla last month, the stage one.
For Turkiye meanwhile, a gold on the weekend will be their first in the compound women team event since Berlin 2019 which was entirely different team the one this week in Shanghai.
“Last year, we competed in the bronze medal match here as well, and we took the bronze,” said Oguz who along with Burun was also in Turkiye’s team that finished fourth in Puebla. “This year too, we fought with all our might to secure the six [compound] medals because the only thing we wanted is to achieve exactly that.”
“The challenge here is that the wind on this range is extremely unpredictable. Anything can happen at any moment, and adapting to it can sometimes be very difficult.
“We experienced this during our individual elimination rounds as well; today, for instance, the wind was incredibly strong, and it significantly affected our arrows – or rather, it significantly affected our shots.”
