Kristina Dolgilevica: Summary of the finals from the world’s third largest open indoor event
Another tournament “with a twist” has come to an end – and it’s only getting bigger. After The Vegas Shoot and the Lancaster Classic in the US, the JVD Open is Europe’s biggest and world’s third largest annual open indoor archery event. All three events depart from the standard WA rules and offer their own variation, “a twist”, to spice things up, as the money prizes grow. The JVD Open competition format is based on an IFAA Vegas round; the tournament consists of three 30-arrow rounds with modified scoring. The shoot-offs are fast paced sudden-death rounds where anything can happen.
Even though the JVD Open has recently moved to a bigger venue, the 2024 tickets were sold out in just three minutes, with extra shooting lines added. A total of around 1,300 participants from 47 countries signed up; it seems to be growing exponentially and maybe next year we will see a four-day event in an even bigger venue. “This year’s edition of the JVD Open was the biggest edition ever. For example, we have never before had so many archers from vastly different countries. Everything went extremely smoothly, and we look back on a very successful tournament”, commented JVD.
The JVD has the capacity to grow under the brilliant organisation of the JVD enterprise, to rival even the 4000 participation numbers of Vegas. The best part about Open events is that they are open to all archers and a lucky Joker is selected for all final shoot outs, so you too can maybe rub shoulders with the giants. Next JVD Open: 7th – 9th of November 2025. Be there.
Format
For this IFAA Vegas format variation compound archers shoot scoring 10 points for the inner and “recurve” ten, identical to a standard Vegas round, while recurve and barebow archers use a unique Kings of Archery system where the complete yellow zone (including the 9) counts as ten points, which explains the higher than usual barebow scores in qualification; all other scoring zones follow standard WA scoring. All competitors shoot the first two rounds (a total of 60 arrows) on Friday and Saturday. The final qualification round (30 arrows) is shot on Saturday evening or Sunday morning. A total qualification score can amount to a maximum of 900 points. Like in Vegas you can join the 900 Club by shooting a perfect score; this will guarantee you a finals spot. If there are insufficient 900-scorers in a division, the rest of the spots are filled according to the qualification scores. Finals are held for adult barebow, recurve and compound categories, and standard WA scoring is used to more quickly weed out the least accurate.
Barebow Women’s Finals – Crown goes to Mantilli
Barebow ladies were first to hit the impressive finals field. A total of nine women, including the joker, took to the line after one end of practice on the Vegas style target face. The world’s most accomplished barebow archer, last year’s champion Cinzia Noziglia, was the top qualifier with an impressive 863 points and 35 Xs. The UK’s Sarah Hubbard was amongst the finalists, with 750 and 18Xs. The fast-paced shoot-offs proceeded, with archers shooting one end of three arrows, after which four tied with a score of 26. The tie was shot for with one arrow from each competitor to decide the third place, where Noziglia exited the competition; Poland’s Inga Zagrodska claimed bronze. This was swiftly followed by the final three arrow shoot-off between Italy’s Giulia Mantilli, the second qualifier, who shot an inside-out, a 9 and an 8. Germany’s Karen Meyer took silver, because Mantilli shot solidly.
Barebow Men’s Finals – Leave it to The Young
The male qualifiers were evenly matched and exhibited high qualification scores with a 25 score point difference between them. There were two archers who stole the show – the very-young-looking 20-year-old Romanian Baican Ciprian, 2024 World Field team silver medallist, and the 18-year-old Swede Ludvig Rohlin, 2024 World Field individual gold medallist. Baican qualified with 874, 44Xs, Ludvig with 868, 34Xs. Both these young competitors demonstrated a confident display of skill and genuine emotion. Ciprian started off with 29 and here is where the tournament ended – he was pronounced champion. The second and third places were shot for, and Ludvig took silver after winning a one arrow shoot-off with a 9 against his opponent from Germany, Vadim Van Uytsel, who dropped a low 6.
Women’s recurve – Quick and Perfect
The final line up was almost entirely made up of Olympians, including the Mexican-born Dutch representative Gaby Schloesser, Germany’s Michelle Kroppen, India’s Deepika Kumari, the UK’S Penny Healy, Italy’s Chiara Rebagliati, and the JVD Open number one qualifier, also an Italian, Lucilla Boari. The world circuit Pro Vanessa Landi of Italy joined the line-up. Penny and Rebagliati shot a perfect thirty and moved onto the final shoot-off. Chiara continued with another perfect score to Penny’s 29, who went away with silver. Bronze went to France’s Amélie Cordeau. One end is all it takes to get to the podium in the fast-paced JVD Open.
Men’s recurve – High scorers. P.S: Sjef is back.
The biggest surprise was the return of the Netherland’s own, the retired 29-year-old Sjef van den Berg. What is most impressive is that he qualified with a perfect 900 (67Xs) using an older Hoyt model. Norwegian Christensen (67Xs), Italian Alessandro Paoli (70Xs), the two top qualifiers, India’s Sachin Gupta (79Xs) and France’s Thomas Chirault (79Xs) joined Sjef in a 900-score-qualifier line-up. Here Axel Simons of Germany, the joker, qualified for the final with a perfect 30, but in the end he did not make it to the podium. Thomas took the gold and stood on the podium sandwiched between the two Italians, Nespoli in second place, Paoli in third.
Compound Women – Italy’s Roner Dialled in
Here we had four 900 scorers, Spain’s Andrea Muñoz, India’s Jyothi Surekha Vennam, Italy’s Eliza Roner, and Colombia’s Alejandra Usquiano, JVD’s top qualifier. UK’s Ella Gibson joined the line-up with 899. Roner took gold, Estonia’s Maarita Paas silver, and bronze went to Vennam. Interestingly, here the joker card went to the highly seasoned archer, Tanja Gellenthien. In this part of the event, we saw more shoot-offs than in the previous divisions. Somehow, it was a little less exciting to watch the women’s compound, but we got to see the world’s most accomplished outdoor shooters on one line.
Compound Men – 23 Gents Cut to the Last Man Standing
20 of the 23 were the 900-point qualifiers; amongst them the UK’s Ajay Scott (70Xs), “Mr Perfect”, Mike Schloesser (77Xs), the archery legend, and Denmark’s Martin Damsbo with 79Xs. Slovakian Jozef Bosansky matched the qualifying score of another Dane and this year’s JVD champion, Stephan Hansen, both shooting 83Xs. The Americans Cousins, Gellenthien, Douglas, and Carter shot 84Xs. Abhishek Verma of India and France’s Boulch shot 85Xs. Shamai Yamrom, a talent from Israel, Austria’s Nico Wiener, and France’s Girard all shot 87 Xs, missing only 3. But there was one absolutely perfect 900 90X qualifier – Mathias Fullerton from Denmark. Unbelievable. He may want to borrow Schloesser’s nickname. However, Mathias did not appear on the podium this time; it was Hansen’s day. Ajay claimed silver, and the bronze went to the USA’s Kyle Douglas. The gold final match was a true display of world class and really felt like “the survival of the fittest”, with Ajay dropping one low on the last arrow. Maybe next year we can see 23 compound women too?
For more information, please visit www.jvdopen.com, follow jvdopen on Instagram and JVD OPEN on Facebook. JVD Archery, Europe’s biggest and most trusted archery equipment distributor celebrates its 50th anniversary this year! Visit their website to put your orders in: www.jvd-archery.com.
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