ARCHERY Preview: More than a dozen Olympic and World medalists at Tokyo test event

World Champion Brady Ellison of the U.S.

The World Archery World Cup in Berlin ended last Sunday, but a lot of the top shooters in the world didn’t go home; they headed for Japan.

The archery test event for 2020 – Ready, Steady Tokyo – is underway at the Yumenoshima Park Archery Field in Tokyo, with the Ranking Round on the 12th (Friday) and competition ending with the women’s and men’s finals on 17-18 July.

The event has attracted an all-star field, with more than a dozen medal-winners from either the Olympic Games or World Championships, or both:

Men:
● Woojin Kim (KOR) ~ 2015 World Champion
● Rick van der Ven (NED) ~ 2015 World Champs silver medalist
● Takaharu Fukuhara (JPN) ~ 2015 World Champs bronze medalist
● Steve Wijler (NED) ~ 2017 World Champs bronze medalist
● Jean-Charles Valladont (FRA) ~ 2016 Olympic silver medalist
● Brady Ellison (USA) ~ 2019 World Champion; 2016 Olympic bronze
● Khairul Anuar Mohamed (MAS) ~ 2019 Worlds silver medalist
● Ruman Shana (BAN) ~ 2019 Worlds bronze medalist

Women:
● Ksenia Perova (RUS) ~ 2017 World champion
● Hye-Jin Chang (KOR) ~ 2016 Olympic Champion; 2017 Worlds silver
● Lisa Unruh (GER) ~ 2016 Olympic silver
● Ya-Ting Tan (TPE) ~ 2018 Worlds bronze medalist
● Chien-Ying Lei (TPE) ~ 2019 World Champion

In addition, the Berlin World Cup winners – Mete Gazoz (TUR) and San An (KOR) – are on hand, as is 15-year-old Casey Kaufhold of the U.S., who won an Indoor World Cup stage early in the year.

This is a Recurve tournament only – no Compound competition – and no teams. But it is a first look at what the archers will be looking at a year from now … and that makes it important. Look for results here.