Youth Olympic Archery: Singapore’s Abdud Dayyan and Vanessa Loh progress to the next round

Story by Alan Chiang/Red Sports. Photos by Marvin Lowe/Red Sports

Kallang Field, Wednesday, August 18, 2010 — There were mixed feelings for Team Singapore at the Youth Olympic Games (YOG) archery competition. Vanessa Loh Tze Rong and Abdud Dayyan bin Mohamed Jaffar progressed but lady luck was not smiling on Elizabeth Cheok who was sent packing.

Singapore’s Elizabeth Cheok bowed out of the competition after failing to start at the Junior Women’s Individual event and went down in the Mixed Team competition. Elizabeth did not have a good outing as she was drawn to pair with Mexico’s Jafet Farjat, who was lowest ranked at 32nd position.

Earlier today, Singapore’s Vanessa Loh lost narrowly to Turkey’s Begunhan Elif Unsal in the Junior Women’s Individual category. Vanessa Loh, paired with Spain’s Carlos Rivas, picked up the pace in the Mixed Team competition to secure a credible 3-1 win over the combination of Tajikistan’s Kristina Zaynutdinov and Korea’s second seed Park Min Beom. Vanessa Loh and Carlos Rivas claimed an early 2-0 lead but the duo needed the tiebreaker to hold down a victory.

Singapore’s Abdud Dayyan was the nation’s best hope in archery after he trounced France’s Julien Rossignol 3-0 in the Junior Men’s Individual event to advance to the next elimination round. In the Mixed Team competition, he was drawn to pair with Turkey’s Begunhan Elif Unsal, who had earlier triumphed over his compatriot Vanessa in the Women’s Individual event.

But Abdud Dayyan’s partnership with Begunhan Elif Unsal delivered the goods for the host nation. They had to overcome the first set loss and fought through to the final set to edge out Russia’s Tatiana Segina and Poland’s Maciej Jaworski, 2-1.

Abdud Dayyan will meet France’s Julien Rossignol again in the next elimination round of the Mixed Team competition.

Abdud Dayyan will be in action tomorrow, August 19th, 12:30pm at Kallang Field in the Mixed Team event with Begunhan Elif Unsal, and on Saturday, August 21st, 11:56am against Great Britain’s third seed Mark Nesbitt in the Individual event.

Vanessa Loh, together with her partner Kristina Zaynutdinov, will also feature tomorrow, August 19th, at 12:12pm, against Australia’s Benjamin Nott and Slovenia’s Brina Bozic in the Mixed Team event.

For Singapore fixtures and results, go to our 2010 YOG fixtures page