Silver arrows: Russian archers took second place in the team tournament at the Tokyo Olympics

Five years ago, for the first time in their history, Russian archers became silver medalists in a team tournament.

But there could be some doubts that Tokyo will be able to rise to the podium again.

In qualifying, Svetlana Gomboeva, Ksenia Perova and Elena Osipova showed only sixth total points, while in Rio de Janeiro they managed to show the best result after the invincible Korean girls.

In addition, immediately after the qualifying round, a real misfortune happened to Gomboeva - due to sunstroke, she lost consciousness and had to wait a long time until she received medical attention.

The Russian woman had only one day to recover before performing in the team competition.

All worries about the state of Gomboeva were ultimately in vain.

The Russians began their performances from the 1/8 finals, where Ukrainian archers became their rivals.

Gomboeva went out to shoot first and immediately hit the top ten.

Her confidence passed on to her teammates, and they left the starting set for themselves.

In the second, Gomboeva, Perova and Osipova hit the center of the target one after another, but then they all got caught in a gust of wind and started shooting into the red zone.

They still won the set, but in the next series the Ukrainian women were one point ahead.

In the last round, the two teams went level, until Veronica Marchenko sent an arrow into the seven-point zone.

However, in that set, the Russians themselves scored a very decent 54 points (out of 60 possible), which would have been difficult to beat.

In the quarterfinals, the teams entered the fight, which took the first four places in the qualification. In theory, skipping the first round was supposed to be a kind of reward for them, but in the end, almost all of them immediately finished their performances without a proper warm-up. Only the South Korean national team, which won all eight women's Olympic tournaments, was able to defeat Italy. In other quarterfinals, Mexico lost to Germany, Japan lost to Belarus, and the Russians had already coped with the United States.

In this match, there was only one moment for excitement, when Gomboeva began the second set with a six. But the Americans themselves sent arrows twice to the same area far from the "bull's-eye". In the first two rounds, they did not score even 50 points, and the Russians easily overlapped their result. In the third round, the US archers got together and showed a decent 53 points, only the response of their rivals was even more impressive. Gomboeva, Perova and Osipova scored 57 points for three - only the Korean women that day showed commensurate collective accuracy.

For reaching the finals and guaranteed silver medals, they had to meet with German archers led by Lisa Unruch - the silver medalist of the Rio Olympics in the individual championship.

The first set worked out well for the Russians until Perova got into the top seven.

This allowed the Germans to catch up with their rivals and fix a draw.

In the next round, which Gomboeva habitually began with an accurate hit in the top ten, her friends let her down again.

Their mistakes resulted in only 51 points being scored in six shots.

On the German women, the inspiration just descended - thanks to two tens, two nines and one eight, Unruh had enough to score six more points with the last shot to win the set.

However, the arrow of an experienced athlete flew not even to the blue or black zone, but to the white one, and brought the German national team only two points.

Unruh tried with all her might to improve and in the next round hit two tens, but her partners lost heart and did not show anything worthy.

The Russians, on the joy of such a wonderful turn of events, again earned 57 points.

In the final of the Olympics, the teams of Russia and South Korea met for the second time in a row, while only Perova participated in both decisive battles for gold.

Although the Korean women were the undisputed favorites, they showed in the semifinals that they too can give weakness - in the dispute with the Belarusians, they gained 54 points per set, and even 53.

But the Russian women were no longer able to shoot at the limit of their capabilities.

For 55 points of the Koreans in the first set, they answered 54. In the second, the Koreans added thanks to two dozen An San, who had already won the tournament in the mixed doubles, while Perova had two eights.

In the third round, there was no more struggle - 51 points of the Russians did not cause awe among the rivals.

South Korea won the women's team archery tournament for the ninth time in a row, and the Russians again became silver medalists.

Bronze went to German girls.

Now the archers will have a day of rest, and from July 27 to July 30 they will return to the lukodrom and compete for medals in the individual championship.