Elia Canales and the female couple, in the final of the European Championship; Olympic venues compete

The German city of Essen is hosting this week of European Archery Championshipan event that also serves as continental team pre-olympics in the Olympic modality, the recurve. This Friday is an important day for fighting for medals both individually and as a team and the sensations have been unique for the Spanish delegation in the first way, with pass in the final by Elia Canales, but they were not accompanied by the second. Besides, Andrea Muñoz, Paula Díaz and Alexa Misis qualified for the team arch final.

Elia Canales entered the final of the European recurve bow individual, Olympic modality. The Spanish, together with Miguel Alvariño achieved the Olympic place in the mixed team months ago to also guarantee an individual ticket (although these places are not nominal and will be decided according to the results of RFETA, where Alvariño is absent from the Olympic race for several months where he announced a break due to mental health), extended his good sensations and will fight next Sunday to become European champion.

Canales was seventh in a qualification with Irati Unamunzaga eighteenth and Inés de Velasco forty-first. Canales, exempt in the first two rounds, won 7-3 in the third against Frenchwoman Amélie Cordeau. She had to suffer more in the round of 16 to win 6-5 against Israeli Mikaella Moshe and thus reach the quarterfinals where she met Unamunzaga. Canales won 6-2 to advance to the semifinals where she defeated Italy’s Tatiana Andreoli by a resounding 6-0. So, on Sunday she will fight for gold and silver against German Katharina Bauer, who won the other semifinal 6-4 against Frenchwoman Lisa Barbelin.

In the final draw of seven rounds, De Velasco she stayed in second (she won 6-0 against Israeli Shira Ifergan and lost 0-6 against Swiss Olivia Doigo) and Unamunzaga reached the quarterfinals. Exempt at first, she won the second 6-2 against Estonian Triinu Lilienthal, the third 6-4 against German Elis Tartler and the round of 16 6-2 against British Penny Healey.

The men have yet to enter contention for individual medals, though Andrés Temiño is fourth in a classification with Pablo Acha twenty-eighth and Ken Sanchez thirty seven. Sánchez (7-3 against Czech Josef Kresala in the first round) and Acha (6-0 against Finnish Sampo Ronkanen) met in the second round with Ken winning 6-4. The Spaniard beat Ukrainian Mykhailo Usach 6-5 in the third round and Danish Oliver Staudt 6-2 in the round of 16, but lost in the quarterfinals 6-5 to Slovenian Den Habjan Malavasic. He had eliminated a Temiño exempt from the first two rounds in the third round 6-5.

The men’s and women’s teams, at the moment there is no Olympic place

Although this European Championship, beyond the outstanding individual performance of Canales, has a very important focus on the team events, because for them it served as the European Pre-Olympic for the Paris Games. Neither the men’s nor the women’s teams achieved Olympic qualification, so they assigned this task to the World Olympic Qualifiers and the closing of the rankings, both in mid-June. The classification of teams gives the right to attend the Games with three goalkeepers of the respective gender, but for now Spain sticks to that quota of one man and one woman.

This pursuit was contested by the national teams this Friday. He group of mensixth in qualification with Temiño, Acha and Sánchez, avoided the first round and won a tight 5-4 against Poland in the round of 16. However, they later lost in the quarterfinals against Italy 5-3 to stay in the fight for medals and an Olympic place.

They experienced a similar situation the women. Canales, De Velasco and Unamunzaga qualified fifth to make their debut in the round of 16 with a 6-2 victory over Georgia. However, the Netherlands beat them 5-4 in the quarterfinals. Temiño and Canales, fourth in the mixed team qualification and already secure the Spanish Olympic place before this championship, won 5-1 in the second round against Sweden and lost 5-4 against Turkey in the quarterfinals.

The compound bow girls, in the finals

Meanwhile, in reference to the non-Olympic modality of compound bow, the women’s team will fight for the gold European hand in hand Andrea Muñoz, Paula Díaz and Alexa Misis. Sixth in the preliminary, they beat Italy in the quarterfinals (231-227) and in the semifinals against Great Britain after a tiebreaker (231-231). They will play for gold against Türkiye.

There is no competition for individual medals. Andrea Muñoz led the preliminary phase, with Paula Díaz thirty-fourth and Alexa Misis thirty-sixth. However, Muñoz defeated Ukrainian Yulia Stepura in the second round after a tie at 145, but then lost in the third against Estonian Lisell Jaatma by 143-148. Misis stayed the same after losing 144-146 against German Katharina Raab (previous victories against Lithuanian Inga Timinskiene by 145-144 and against French Sophie Dodémont by 146-144) . Díaz went down early against Polish Kseniya Markintova by 139-140.

In a masculine key, Ramon Lopez, the only Spanish participant, was thirty-seventh in qualifying and lost his debut in the second round 146-147 against Frenchman Quentin Baraër. Lopez reached the mixed team quarterfinals with Muñoz after finishing seventh in the preliminary rounds, winning 150-147 against Israel and then losing 155-157 against Turkey.

In this way, Spain will focus its efforts this weekend on two European finals. The compound girls will face Turkey today at 10:27am in the hunt for gold, while Elia Canales will try for the Olympic recurve crown on Sunday starting at 3:05pm against Germany’s Katharina Bauer.