29 August 2021: Earlier today Phoebe Paterson Pine, 23, qualified for the second round of the Women’s Individual Compound Open. On Friday Games debutante Paterson Pine ranked 16th and achieved a personal best in the rankings round.
Today she faced Tatiana Andrievskaia from the Russian Paralympic Committee in the first round in Yumenoshima Park, winning 142-138 in a confident first outing in the arena which saw her achieve a perfect score of 30 in the 3rd end. She will now face Jess Stretton in an all-British battle on Monday morning with both hoping to secure a place in the quarter finals.
World No.1 Stretton, 21, set a new Paralympic record to finish first in the ranking round, earning her a bye to the second elimination stage, but must now see off her compatriot in order to try to match the gold medal she won at Rio 2016 aged just 16.
The Mixed Team Compound Open saw ParalympicsGB duo Jess Stretton and Nathan Macqueen lose a close quarter final match to a strong team from Iran by 151-153. Stretton and Macqueen finished 6th overall.
On today’s performances, Neil Armitage, CEO of Archery GB said, “Jess and Nathan shot really well in the mixed team event but came up against an Iranian team that were able to get the edge on our determined duo.
It is a shame for the ParalympicsGB archery team that Jess and Phoebe have been drawn against each other, but I am excited to see how they compete tomorrow in the individual competition.”
Commenting on the Women’s Individual Compound Open, Phoebe Paterson Pine said: “It’s difficult knowing that I have to go against a teammate, we absolutely adore each other.
As a team we’re very close-knit. We train together four days a week, we compete together so going against her is going to be difficult. We’re so equally matched it could go either way, I wish her the best of luck and I know she wishes me the best of luck.
Going into the match I was incredibly nervous. This is my first Paralympic Games so entering it I just wanted to stick to my process, stick to my shot, do everything I do normally, and I think I did that to an absolute tee.”
Commenting on the outcome of the Mixed Team competition, Jess Stretton said: “Nathan and I actually shot really well. We did all we could given the circumstances. It was going to go one way or the other and we just got unlucky.
We were as best prepared as we could have been. Even just to get here is an amazing achievement. We were looking at the scores earlier and they were all lower than what we shot. I think If we’d have been up against anyone else, we might have had a different result.
On shooting against fellow teammate Phoebe Paterson Pine tomorrow she added: “I’m both nervous and excited for tomorrow morning. It’s going to be more nerve-wracking shooting out there all by myself because I won’t have Nathan out there supporting on the line but I will still have Rikki (Bingham, Stretton’s coach) so that calms me a little bit. I think I’m a bit nervous because it’s against Phoebe, my teammate, and that’s always difficult but if we both shoot our best and perform as well as I know we can then whatever happens happens.”
Brief background on Paralympic archers:
- Jess Stretton MBE, just 21, who won her first Paralympic gold medal aged only 16 in Rio
- Nathan Macqueen, who played rugby for Glasgow Warriors at under 21 level before a motorbike accident forced him to turn to archery to quell his competitive nature – this is his second Paralympics
- Phoebe Paterson Pine is a student at Worcester University, she holds eight national records, four European records and three world records.
