Chinese Taipei’s young archers shined on Friday as Tang Chih-Chun and Hsu Hsin-tzu reached their debut recurve final fours at Madrid, the fourth and final stage of the 2025 Hyundai Archery World Cup.
Tang, 24, defeated home favourite Andres Temiño Mediel – who was vociferously supported by a large Spanish crowd – 6-2 in the recurve men’s whilst Hsu, 17, overcame France’s Amélie Cordeau 7-1 in the women’s.
Neither ran into any pre competition favourites as major figures such as Olympic champions Kim Woojin, Lim Sihyeon [both Paris 2024] and Mete Gazoz [Tokyo 2020] were shockingly eliminated in the earlier rounds.
Still, a final four is a final four and strong winds made it arduous for many of the 128 archers on the shooting line, but Tang and Hsu were two of the eight able best to manage it.
“Since my first World Cup, my coach and I’s goal is to get to the podium,” said Tang who before Friday had never gone beyond a World Cup individual quarterfinal. “I’m very excited. It’s my honour to stand together with Olympic gold medallists like Woojin and many other outstanding archers.”
“I just kept telling myself that it’s [wind] not a problem for me, to focus. Also, it can make me more confident if I lie to myself.”
The wind in Madrid earlier in the week hadn’t been much of a nuisance. The odd gentle breeze but nothing out of the ordinary that the world’s best archers should be dealing with outdoors.
However, often in between arrows archers were forced to reset their form and wait a couple of seconds for the warm south west gusts to calm down in the Vallehermoso stadium.
