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Army archer advances in Olympic medal quest

Individual elimination rounds held Sept. 10 in Archery were the first to threaten medal chances for the U.S. team, with two military veterans being eliminated.

The competition drew the team’s numbers back to six when Army veteran Russell Wolfe (Williamsburg, Va.) was eliminated after a 31- point loss to Italian archer Oscar de Pelligrin. Marine Corps veteran Chuck Lear (Lee’s Summit, Mo.) was also eliminated in the Men’s Individual Compound W1 after losing to Canadian archer Norbert Murphy by 23 points.

Army veteran Kevin Stone (Kodak, Tenn.) was the first U.S. archer to step up to competition Sept. 10. After finishing10th in an earlier ranking round, Stone beat Amit Dror of Israel by four. His success is one step closer to a medal and means a head-to-head with Mario Vitale of Italy in the 1/8th Elimination Rounds Sept. 11. He will need to mimic his Sept. 10 success through Friday’s 1/4 elimination rounds before making it into the medal finals on Sunday.

Eric Bennett’s (Surprise, Ariz.) medal chances in the Men’s Individual Compound-Open tightened this afternoon when his face-off with Kweon Hyun-Ju of Korea resulted in a tie, each with 106 points. Two arrows into the three-arrow shootoff, Bennett stalled Kweon’s competition after shooting a nine to beat Kweon’s eight.

Bennett will have to draw his success out in order to beat British archer John Stubbs tomorrow in the 1/8th Elimination Rounds. Stubbs’ performance in the ranking round yesterday resulted in a first place ranking and one of the four world records broken. Stubbs’ first-rank score of 691 happened to beat American archer Joe Bailey’s (Flushing, Mich.) June 2007 record of 679.

Source: USOC