Abhishek Verma produced a perfect performance in Strassen, Luxembourg shooting 600, the only archer to hit the score after two days of qualifications at the 2024 GT Open.
A four way tie from yesterday’s qualifying which saw Denmark’s Mathias Fullerton and Stephan Hansen, France’s Nicolas Girard and USA’s James Lutz all drop 599 at the typical 30 metre indoor distance, meant that any compound men archer who could shoot all 60 of their arrows into the 10 ring would become the top seed heading into match play.
Asian Games silver medallist Verma did just that at the Guillaume Tell Archery club, the host of the second stage of the 2025 Indoor World Series which kicked off a fortnight ago in Lausanne, Switzerland.
“It’s my first perfect score ever. This is my first in in the tournament. I’m happy with that. I guess this setup is good for me and I’m able to shoot again.”
“I am more focusing on the elimination and will try to do the same.”
As he has never won a medal in the premier international indoor circuit, world number nine Verma’s pole position is a surprise, but for 2020 Indoor World Series silver medallist Hansen it was little shock he found himself as one of the top seeds.
Guillaume Tell is one of the 29 year old’s favourite ranges having won three medals (two silver, one bronze) there in 2018, 2019 and 2023 and would have felt confident ahead of the matches, especially coming off the back of his victory at the annual Kings of Archery tournament last weekend.
But there would be no repeat of 2017 World Games Hansen’s past successes this year as Antoine Le Bars knocked him out via shoot off in the second round with the Frenchman’s 10 measured closest to the X spot (centre of target).
