Javier takes aim at tough Korean bets

BEIJING – The Koreans have won three of the four events in archery in the last two Olympics and are out to sweep all golds – in the men’s and women’s individual and team events – in the Beijing Olympic archery competitions which start today at the Beijing Olympic Green Archery Field.

Two Koreans –world No. 1 Im Dong-hyung and No. 3 Park Kyung-mo – are out to reaffirm Korean dominance of the sport their country ruled since it was reintroduced in the Seoul Olympics in 1988.

The second-ranked Baljinima Tsyrempilov of Russia and No. 4 Romain Girouille of France are the archers most likely to pull off a surprise win in the individual event where Javier, a wild card entry, is ranked No. 87 worldwide.

The lanky Filipino archer could draw as inspiration the feat of Jazmin Figueroa who provided the Philippines a brief shining moment in Athens four years ago when she beat the World No. 3 Natalie Valeeva of Italy in the first round.

The archery competitions start with today’s ranking round,, known as the FITA (International Archery Association) round, where the results will determine the archers’ rankings in the knockout phase, called the Olympic round.

The top-ranked player in the FITA round plays No. 64, with No. 2 taking on No. 63, and the last pairing to pit No.31 vs No. 32.

While today’s ranking round serves as warmup for some, the fancied bets will maximize their scores to get a higher ranking, which ensures easy first round assignments as they brace for the medal round starting with round of 32 (pairs) on Aug. 13.

Javier will take a breather after today’s ranking phase since the women’s individual ranking, men’s team and women’s team qualifications will be held in the next four days.

If he survives the Round of 32, he advances to the Round of 16 in the afternoon, and the Final 8 an hour later.

The final round – quarterfinals, semifinals and finals – will be held in succession from 10:30 a.m. on Aug. 15.

Competitions in the Olympics and the world championships differ in the conduct of the qualifying rounds. In the qualifying round for the world championships, archers shoot the FITA round at four distances – 70m, 60m, 50m and 30m. In the Olympics the only shooting distance is at 70m.

Also, the number of arrows shot per match in the Olympics has been changed from 18 to 12 arrows throughout the eliminations.