World Archery President Prof Dr Ugur ERDENER today reflected on one of the most "historic and exciting" World Archery Championships in the sport’s long history following the event’s conclusion in Copenhagen on Sunday.
The World Archery Championships broke records in participation, awareness and engagement with the wider public.
More than 600 world-class athletes from nearly 100 countries took part over the eight days of dramatic competition, a significant increase in participation that reflected the success of the federation’s dedication to developing archery as a sport for all around the world. This was further reinforced at the World Archery Congress with the approval of six new member associations and a commitment to only supporting active national federations.
The added incentive of Rio 2016 quota places contributed to the exceptional level of archery on show. A total of 70 places over the men’s and women’s competitions were awarded to 22 different nations by the end of the championships, including to Austria for the first time and NOCs developing in the sport like Indonesia, Colombia and Venezuela.
Historic performances from Iran’s compound men’s team and Ukraine’s compound women’s team won both their countries’ first ever world titles at a World Archery Championships, while Russia’s recurve women’s team claimed a world title for their nation for the first time in 28 years.
Spectators in sold-out seating at the iconic Christiansborg Palace, which saw a total of 6,500 tickets issued through the four finals sessions, watched Kim Woojin, Olympic Champion Ki Bo Bae and Kim Yun Hee of Korea won the recurve men’s, recurve women’s and compound women’s individual titles, respectively. Kim Yun Hee’s medal was a first world gold for Korea in the compound discipline.
The highlight of the competition for Danish spectators was when Stephan Hansen took gold in an exhilarating home final in front of Denmark’s Parliament building.
The qualification and elimination stages of the tournament in Sundby Park were free to enter for the general public and a show target was broadcast live on national Danish television network TV2 and webcast on Archery TV.
As well as full-live broadcast on TV2 and across the Eurosport network, the finals were shown by an additional nine channels in Korea, China, Turkey, France, Mexico, Japan and the Netherlands.
World Archery’s digital and social platforms saw a minimum 150 percent growth in engagement from the previous World Archery Championships in 2013. The federation’s Facebook and Twitter accounts account generated 13.1 million impressions through the duration of the 2015 event, while over 3.4 million minutes of footage was watched on the Archery TV YouTube Channel.
By the end of the 2015 World Archery Championships, World Archery’s Facebook pages totalled over 120k fans, Twitter over 20.5k followers, and YouTube nearly 60k subscribers and more than 26.7 million views.
Reflecting on the Championships, World Archery President Prof Dr Ugur ERDENER said:
"The 2015 World Archery Championships in Copenhagen were some of the most historic and exciting we have ever seen. We were treated to some very tense and exciting matches decided by perfect scores and dramatic comebacks. This is part of what makes archery so popular all around the world. Athletes perform at such a high-level, combining extreme precision, intensity and timing – while coping with weather conditions, which were challenging at times in Copenhagen, and the environment – to deliver as close as perfection as possible on the competition field."
"It is inspiring to see countries such as Iran and Ukraine winning their first world titles and shows that our programmes to develop archery around the world are working."
"The fact that such young champions are emerging at the senior level is only a good thing for the advancement of our sport. Not only can young people access our wide reaching social and digital platforms but they can easily identify with young stars, like 20-year-old Stephan Hansen."
"With the first quota places for Rio 2016 awarded, athletes can start to look ahead to the next Olympic Games, one year away today. I am sure they will be fantastic and an opportunity to build on the great success of London 2012."
For more information, please contact World Archery Communications Manager Mr Chris WELLS via email (cwells@archery.org) or telephone (+41 79 947 55 20).
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