TEAM ANNOUNCED FOR WORLD CUP AND OLYMPIC TEST EVENT

With Australia now guaranteed three places in the men’s archery competition at next year’s Rio Olympics, the battle for those three positions within the Australian team is about to intensify. With Australia now guaranteed three places in the men’s archery competition at next year’s Rio Olympics, the battle for those three positions within the Australian team is about to intensify.  Australia will send four male archers to next month’s World Cup event in Medellin, Colombia, as well as leading female archer, Semra Lingard.  The three men who successfully qualified the Australian team at last month’s World Championships – Taylor Worth, Alec Potts and Ryan Tyack – will be joined in Colombia by three-time Olympian, Matt Gray.  The quartet competed at two World Cups earlier this year, where the top three performers were selected to compete at the Copenhagen World Championships.  Archery Australia has also announced that Tyack, Potts, Worth and Lingard will take part in the Rio archery test event from September 15.  Archery Australia High Performance Manager, Lorinda Rugless, said the athletes selected to compete at the test event are not necessarily the athletes who will be selected to attend next year’s Olympics.  “There will be a selection process to select the athletes to fill the spots that Archery Australia has earned,” Ms Rugless said.  “As soon as that policy is finalised it will be made available both on the Archery Australia and Australian Olympic Committee website.”  Lingard, who narrowly missed out on qualification for Rio at the World Championships, will be Australia’s only female competitor in Medellin, which runs from September 8 until September 13.  Lingard and her Australian teammates will get one last chance to qualify for Rio, when they compete in the Oceania qualifiers in Tonga next April.  However only one female archer will be able to attend Rio, after the team failed to finish top eight at the World Championships.