Archery Canada – OTTAWA (Archery Canada) – Austin Taylor of Winnipeg claimed silver in compound junior men on Saturday at the 16^th edition of the World Archery Youth Championships, which concluded in Madrid, Spain.
 
Archery Canada Website: www.archerycanada.ca/en
Madrid 2019: Results
 
Taylor was looking to become only the second Canadian archer to capture a world youth individual title, 13 years after Doris Jones of Selkirk, Manitoba, was crowned in compound junior women in Mérida, Mexico.
 
The 19-year-old Taylor had a magical run to the gold-medal match in Madrid. After placing sixth in the 63-athlete qualification phase with a 698 score, he racked up four wins in the ranking stage, including a thrilling shoot-off victory against Colombia’s Jagdeep Singh in the round of 32, followed by triumphs over Turkey’s Emircan Haney in the round of 16 (145-143), Germany’s Paolo Kunsch in the quarter-finals (146-145) and seventh-seeded Rodrigo Olvera of Mexico – the eventual bronze medallist – in the semis (146-145).
 
Unfortunately for the Canadian, he couldn’t do much in the championship final against a dominant Anders Faugstad. The top-seeded Norwegian, who earlier this summer merited silver at the senior worlds in the Netherlands, shot a perfect 150 to take the title match 150-141.
 
Two other Canadians, Cole Beres of Calgary and Matthew Turcotte of Saint-Rémi, Que., were competing alongside Taylor in compound junior men and both won ranking matches on their way to finishing 17^th and 33^rd, respectively.
 
Beres, 19, who helped Canada capture silver in the junior men’s team event at the 2017 youth worlds in Rosario, Argentina, won his first two head-to-head duels, including an upset of 13^th-seeded Roman Efinov of Russia in the second round, before falling 142-146 to Connor Sears of the United States in the round of 32.
 
Turcotte, 20, beat Namibia’s Duan Engelbrecht in a shoot-off in his opener before dropping a 143-149 second-round decision to 10^th-seeded Sukhbeer Singh of India.
 
Men’s compound cadet team finishes fourth
 
Canada almost added a second medal in Madrid, in the men’s compound cadet team tournament, where the Winnipeg trio of Robbie Comberbach, Brady Klassen and Kyle Cherniak made it all the way to the semifinal round but ended up taking fourth place after falling 231-233 to Turkey in the bronze-medal match.
 
Seeded fifth after the qualification stage, the Canucks defeated Italy 233-229 and No. 4 Russia 225-222 in their first two ranking confrontations, before losing 228-230 in the semis to top-seeded Denmark, the eventual silver medallist.
 
Comberbach also posted an individual top 10 in compound cadet, placing ninth in a field of 55, while Klassen and Cherniak both finished 17^th.
 
After qualifying in 14^th position, Comberbach beat Italy’s Giacomo Cuogo 142-136 and Matthew Russell of the USA 144-142 before dropping a close-fought 145-146 affair against third-seeded Daniil Kosenkov of Russia, the eventual silver medallist, in the third round. 
 
Canada also achieved an individual top 10 in junior women compound courtesy of Alexandra Paquette of Quyon, Que., who placed ninth after qualifying 27^th in a field of 45. Teammates Bryanne Lameg of Winnipeg and Emerie Watson of Quesnel, B.C., finished 17^th and 33^rd, respectively.
 
Paquette, a world youth silver medallist at the cadet level in 2017, defeated Thailand’s O-Mart Thongchat in her opener, scored a shoot-off upset against sixth-seeded Jessica Stretton of Great Britain in the second round, before losing 138-147 to No. 11 Veronika Sanina of Russia in the round of 16.
 
In compound cadet women, Kristen Arsenault of Abrams Village, P.E.I., Abbigail Bunn of Peterborough, Ont., and Chyler Sanders of Winnipeg tied for 17^th place.
 
In individual recurve, where Canada was only represented on the men’s side, Aaron Cox of Devon, Alta., and Montreal’s Rémi Gervais were 17^th and 57^th, respectively, in the junior tournament, while Benjamen Lee of Kitchener, Ont., and Jules Chouinard of Montreal were 33^rd and 57^th in cadet competition.
 
Canada also competed in five other compound team events, reaching the quarter-finals in junior women (7^th), junior mixed (7^th) and cadet mixed (8^th), and finishing ninth in junior men and cadet women.