Italy’s Simone Barbieri and Cinzia Noziglia both seeded top of the men’s and women’s fields after barebow field qualification concluded today at the Chengdu 2025 World Games.
As with the recurve field qualification, the archers shot twelve marked targets followed by twelve unmarked targets, in the same very hot and humid conditions Chengdu has seen all week.
Barbieri, the silver medallist at the Mokrice 2024 World Archery 3D Championships last year, dominated the men’s field with 371, leading by 28 points from the second placed Erik Jonsson of Sweden, twice a World Games champion.
“There are no secrets, really,” said the 32-year-old. ”It’s about staying relaxed. The course is fairly simple, the most difficult thing is dealing with the heat. I just tried to shoot each target in the same way.”
In the women’s competition, Cinzia Noziglia took a big stride towards her third consecutive World Games title with a dominant qualifying round that saw her 29 points ahead of the second placed archer, Alicia Baumert of France, with Fawn Girard of the USA in third place. Baumert and Girard, who both finished on 310, had a shoot-off on the 50 metre target to decide who would take the crucial 2nd place.
Noziglia, the dominant barebow athlete of her era, has won every major field title available, but was absent from the Lac La Biche 2024 World Archery Field Championships last year.
“I’m pretty happy, my score [here] was not the highest, but it was enough,” she said.
“Obviously winning three times is important to me. But I just want to do my best. My object is not the gold medal. But it’s very hard, because my expectations for myself are very high!”
