Ukraine win double athletic gold, Estonia spring archery surprise at 2019 FISU Summer Universiade in

On a day which saw several impressive performances at the Stadio San Paolo, Klymets and Korsun emerged as winners in the women’s hammer throw and triple jump respectively.

The 13.90 jumped by Korsun saw her take the gold medal along with a personal best from Portugal’s Evelise Tavares Da Veiga in second who took silver and Slovenia’s Neja Filipic in third with bronze.

Klymets came out on top of the women’s hammer throw event after a lengthy battle with Poland’s Malwina Kopron and Katarzyna Furmanek, who clinched silver and bronze respectively.

There was a gold medal for Great Britain in the women’s 5000 metres where Jessica Judd eased home to victory in a time of 15:45, ahead of Canada’s Nicole Hutchinson in second and The Netherlands Julia Van Velthoven in third who took silver and bronze respectively.

The men’s events saw a blistering gold medal for Brazil’s Gabriel Constantino, who finished just 0.01 seconds off the Universiade Record in the men’s 110 metres hurdles, coming in front of France’s Wilhem Belocian in second and Japan’s Shunsuke Izumiya in third.

Morocco’s Mounaime Sassioui clinched gold in a competitive men’s 3000 metres steeplechase which saw the South African duo of Rantso Mokopane and Ashley Smith come in second and third for silver and bronze.

The men’s pole vault saw Ernest John Obiena of the Philippines who triumph ahead of Germany’s Torben Blech in second and Belgium’s Ben Joren Broeders in third.

The finals of the 20 kilometre walk saw Australia’s Katie Hayward win the women’s competition, with her teammate Jemima Montag taking silver and Czech’ Anezka Drahotova claiming bronze.

Japan swept the board and clinched all three medals in the men’s 20 kilometre final with Koki Ikeda securing gold, from compatriots Masatora Kawano and Yuta Koga who took silver and bronze respectively.

The athletics events at the Stadio San Paolo come to a close today (13 July) with the last finals including the men’s long jump and 800 metres, and the women’s high jump and 1500 metres.
In the sailing competitions, Finland claimed gold in mixed fleet racing thanks to a near-perfect performance on the final day of action at iconic Circolo del Remo e della Vela Italia, in the Bay of Naples. Fourth-seeded Austria, the only team to defeat Finland on Friday, moved up two spots to capture silver thanks to a 14-point tally, while Singapore 2 held on to third position with 17 points.

Australia dropped from first to fourth place after racking up 25 points in the four-round final, due in large part to a pair of last-place finishes, this having collected only 48 points in the preliminary stage. Singapore 1 (26 points), Russia (29), Germany (30) and Japan (32) rounded out the top eight.

In the two-race “small final” for positions nine through 16, Switzerland came out on top with six points, followed by Italy 1 (9), South Korea (11), Spain 2 (11), China (16), Spain 1 (18), Italy 2 (20) and France (20).

The compound archery medals were also decided at the Summer Universiade 2019 on Friday, with Estonian siblings Lisell and Robin Jaatma and Mexico’s Andrea Becerra producing the big surprise of the competition.

The Lisells stunned favourites Chen Chieh-Lun and Chen Yi-Hsuan of Chinese Taipei in the mixed team event in a dramatic encounter than ended in a shoot-off.

Shooting over 50 metres in the spectacular setting of the Royal Palace of Caserta, which used to be the residence of the kings of Naples, the Estonians had built up a two-point lead by the half-way stage. The Chinese Taipei duo then dug deep and came back with some formidable accuracy, forcing Robin Jaatma to get a 10 from the last arrow of regulation archery to keep the contest alive. It was initially marked as a nine, but the arrow clipped the line and the judges upped the score. The Estonians hit a perfect 20 in the ensuing shoot-off to claim victory.

In the bronze medal match, the top-seeded Korean pairing of So Chaewon and Kim Jongho recovered from a shaky start to make light work of Kazakhstan, triumphing 149-140.

Mexico’s Andrea Becerra, 18, showed nerves of steel to defeat South Korea’s So Chaewon, the world number eight, 146-141 in the women’s individual compound event. Turkey’s Yesim Bostan, the world number four, beat Kazakhstan’s Diana Makarchuk 145-142 to claim bronze.

Chaewon did however have a gold medal to celebrate as she helped South Korea defend the women’s compound team title that they won two years ago in Taipei, edging Turkey 156-154 in a high quality match. The Turkish pair of Bostan and Gizem Elmaagacli had the better of the early stages. But Korea’s Chaewon and Kim Yunhee took advantage of some dropped points during the third end to seize the initiative and control proceedings to clinch victory.

Chinese Taipei were too good for Russia in the bronze-medal match, prevailing 154-149.

The Turkish duo of Suleyman Araz and Muhammed Yetim pipped Iranians Kiarash Farzan and Mohammadsaleh Palizban in the men’s team event. After four ends of high-quality archery, the score was tied at 156 points each, forcing a shoot-off decider. Both teams scored 19, but Turkey got the gold thanks to Yetim’s shot on the x ring being the closest to the middle. Mexico won the bronze medal, dropping just two points in a 158-150 victory over the United States.

There were more surprises in the men’s individual event when South Korea’s Kim Jongho, who was aiming for his third consecutive Universiade title, completely missed the target twice as he lost his semi-final to Turkey’s Yetim.

Kim Jongho recovered to beat Poland’s Lukasz Przybylsk and win bronze. Russian’s Anton Bulaev beat Yetim in a shoot-off to take gold after the match ended with both arches totalling 147 each.

The archery competitions conclude on Saturday with the recurve finals.

The tennis competitions at the Summer Universiade had their penultimate day as the women’s and men’s doubles finals were contested at the Napoli Tennis Club.

Set against the stunning backdrop of the Neapolitan bay, Asian women totally dominated the women’s doubles competition. Hong Kong were beaten in an epic semi-final by eventual silver medallists Chinese Taipei, while China beat Japan in the last four and then went onto win gold. The final match between China and Chinese Taipei was extremely close every step of the way, as Hanyu Guo and Qiuyu Ye, both aged 21, took on Chinese Taipei’s Ya-Hsuan Lee and Pei-Chi Lee. Taipei won the first set in a tie-breaker, but then China bounced back to win the second set 6-2. That sent the battle into a match tie-breaker, with China winning it 10-8, and with it, the gold medal.

The women’s singles semi-finals saw Chompoothip Jundakate of Thailand, listed as world no.571 on the WTA rankings, taking on 18-year-old Naho Sato of Japan ranked 582. The match was not as close as their rankings would have predicted, with Sato winning in straight sets. The Japanese youngster, who has been as high as number seven on the ITF world junior rankings, broke Jundakate’s serve three times to win the first set 6-4. She then ran through the second, winning it 6-1. Sato will now be up against Emily Arbuthnott of Great Britain in the quest for singles gold.

In the men’s singles semi-finals, Khumoyun Sultanov from Uzbekistan was simply too strong for his French opponent Lucas Poullain. The 20-year-old Uzbek, who has jumped nearly 200 spots on the ATP Tour rankings in the first six months of the year – going from 561 at the end of 2018 to number 380 in July 2019 – beat Poullain in straight sets, winning the first set 6-0. It was disappointing for Poullain, who had also finished with a bronze medal in Gwangju in 2015. Sultanov will take on Chun-Hsin Tseng ofChinese Taipei in the final.

The final match of the evening under floodlights was one worth waiting for as Khumoyun was back on court with partner Sanjar Fayziev against Seongchan Hong and Sanhui Shin of Korea in the men’s doubles title match. It was another close encounter that went all the way to a match tie-break. Despite the Korean duo’s best efforts, Uzbekistan won the gold medal after coming back from 0-3 down in the final tie-breaker.

Today will see the men’s and women’s singles finals played, before the mixed doubles will close the tennis competitions for Napoli 2019.