France‘s Victoria Sebastian took her first senior title, winning the recurve women‘s competition at the Taipei Archery Open on Sunday 7 December by beating Korea‘s Lee Eunah 7-1.
”I was pretty calm, I knew I just had to play my game, so it was pretty nice. Now I have more experience, so I was very cool. I was very motivated, but cool.” said the 21-year-old.
Sebastian, who also beat reigning World Champion Kang Chaeyoung and team Youth World Champion Han Sol on the way to the final, indeed stayed extremely cool, calmly delivering four ends of 29 for victory, while Lee never really found full fluency on the stage.
She also achieved the win despite an airline mishap that saw her bow arrive just thirty minutes before the start of qualification on Friday.
Sebastian will next compete in her hometown: Nimes. ”It’s the first time I’ve won a tournament. I’ve been on the podium, but I’d never won a tournament, so this is something I’m very happy about,” she said.
The host nation got something to cheer about when Chinese Taipei’s Su Yu-Yang took the recurve men’s title, beating France’s Jean-Charles Valladont in a shoot-off.
The Rio 2016 Olympic medallist sent down eleven tens from the off and looked to be cruising to victory, but then wobbled in the last two ends as Su went clean to force the shoot-off. The Frenchman shot first, but his nine was easily beaten by Su.
It was Su’s maiden title but his third time on the Taipei stage; he took individual silver in 2022 and a bronze in 2024.
Valladont’s silver meant that all three of the travelling French contingent took a medal home, with Baptiste Addis grabbing recurve men’s bronze from Korea’s Heo Jaewoo.
