LEAMINGTON’S Naomi Folkard made a good start to archery’s international outdoor season last week in the first 2014 Archery World Cup event in Shanghai.
Folkard and team-mate Larry Godfrey – both three-time Olympians – won the bronze medal in the mixed team event.
After a qualification FITA round of six dozen arrows at 70 metres they were ranked 14th.
However, they fought their way back to a medal place as they beat third placed qualifiers Spain on a tie-break after four sets.
In the quarter-finals they beat Ukraine 6-2 to produce a semi-final match against the eventual gold medallists USA.
They were tying after four sets, but this time narrowly lost the tie-break.
In their bronze medal match they faced Shih-Cheng Peng and Shu Chi Yuan of Chinese Taipei and the Brits took advantage of a poor start by their opponents to seize an early 2-0 lead after the first set.
The second set was level pegging, so they maintained their two-point lead, but gained a further two points in the third set to complete the match 5-1 victors.
USA beat Mexico 6-0 to win gold, but the British pair produced the highest score of all the medallists.
In the individual event, after gaining a bye in the first round, Folkard beat Chia-En Lin (Chinese Taipei) 6-4, but then lost 6-0 to Alejandra Valencia (Mexico).
Earlier in the month Folkard attended an international training camp in Antalya, Turkey, from which she returned with bronze medals from both the individual and ladies team events.
