Inner Mongolia win men's team archery title

In the men's team archery event, Inner Mongolia consistently surprised everyone all the way from the quarterfinal through to the final. Their quarterfinal opponents were a strong PLA team, who only needed 11 points in the last two arrows to win but unbelievably missing their target on the last shot. The surprise victory spurred them in the semifinal against hosts Shandong. They were tied at 209-all after regulation arrows. Inner Mongolia went through in the shoot-off by just one point. They carried their winning ways into the final against Xinjiang. This time the Inner Mongolians comfortably beat the defending champions 222-216 to win the title. In the finals, Liu Zhaoyuan, Zhang Hao and Asi'er all performed confidently, but found themselves trailing 28-27 after the first three arrows.

Each team was required to shoot 24 arrows over four rounds. Shooters had to complete 6 arrows in two minutes. The Xinjiang team includes Olympic bronze medalist Xue Haifeng. They had overcome Jiangsu in the semis, performed well and finished the 24 arrows earlier with 216 points.

But the Inner Mongolians are well-known for their love of archery. 30-year-old Liu Zhaoyuan even decided to stay single in order to focus all his energy and time on training. Liu shot a nine point for his last arrow.

Now it's Zhang Hao's turn, who kept his cool to shoot a perfect 10-point arrow.

Asi'er, the last archer for Inner Mongolia, needed only 4 points for the arrow. He made sure of victory by getting 10 points! So IM overcame Xinjiang 222-216 to take the team title. Their coach Suyalatu said later that Inner Mongolia were not dark horses. Though they didn't even win a medal in the 2005 national games, they did have the strength to top the archery event.

After the match, Zhang Hao said they managed to forget their pressure during the match.

Liu Zhaoyuan said nobody knew who would win during the match, and he just took it easy and that's why he put in a steady performance.

Asi'er owed success to his coach, his leader and the support from his family.

In an earlier match, Jiangsu defeated hosts Shandong 217-211 to take the bronze.

So Inner Mongolia finally took the title. As a seventh-place team in the preliminaries, Inner Mongolia dramatically overcame their archrivals step by step to top the podium.