Today’s gold final was an opponent rematch of the Rio 2016 Olympic archery bronze match between Ellison and the Netherlands’ Sjef Van Den Berg. Van den Berg reported that he was still disappointed about his fourth place finish in Rio behind Ellison’s bronze medal win. Ellison opened the match with a strong first two sets to take the lead 4-0. Then Van Den Berg came back to bring the match to a 4-4 tie. In the last arrow Van Den Berg needed a nine to secure the win; he shot an eight. Ellison, who has won 64% of his tie-breaker shoot offs, shot a nine. Van Den Berg responded with another eight and gave Ellison the win.

USA’s Zach Garrett (Wellington, Missouri) made his World Cup Final debut earlier, just one month after his Olympic Games debut in Rio. At one point this summer Garrett was ranked third in the world, and coming into competition today he was seeded 6th. Facing Chinese Taipei’s Chun-Heng Wei, Garrett had a tough opponent. Wei took the match in three straight sets to advance. Wei then met Ellison in the semifinals, where Ellison took the win 6-2 to shoot for the gold. Korea’s Olympic Champion Ku then defeated Wei again for the bronze.

In addition to the World Cup Final title, Ellison also earned his fourth Longines Prize. Longines introduced the Prize for Precision in 2010 to celebrate the most accurate archers across of the year. The male and female archer with the highest number of 10s through ranking round and elimination matches, accumulated at all stages and the Final of the Archery World Cup, are awarded the prize. Recurve archers are eligible for the award in even years and compound archers in odd years, so out of the four possible years for recurve, Ellison has won all four times.

“I really like the Longines Prize for Precision for a couple of reasons,” Ellison told World Archery. “One, I’m the only person that wins it, so I really like that; that I’ve been that fortunate. I do like that it’s a good showing for consistency over the whole season. You may not be winning tournaments but you are shooting well enough to be in the top. I think that’s cool. I like getting a watch. It gives you extra incentive to do something besides win a tournament.”

On winning his fourth World Cup Final title, Ellison added: “It means a lot. It’s my fourth World Cup Final championship. [Colombia’s] Sara Lopez was getting close, but winning it this time and pushing it a little farther out of reach, feels good. It caps a pretty good year. I won the indoor World Cup final, individual Olympic medal, bronze at the world championships, and now this.” Up next for Ellison: World Archery Field Championships in Dublin, Ireland begin tomorrow.

Complete results from the Archery World Cup Final can be found at World Archery’s website.

About USA Archery

USA Archery is the National Governing Body for the Olympic sport of archery in the United States. USA Archery selects and trains Olympic, Paralympic, World Championship, and World Cup teams, as well as developing archery at the grassroots level across the United States. For more information, visit USA Archery’s website.

Media Contact 
Sarah Bernstein/Public Relations
201.919.8050

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Antalya, Turkey — In the final World Cup qualifying event of 2016, Korea’s Olympic Team set a new World Record for the team round with a whopping eight point edge over the previous record, also set by a Korean women’s team.

The combined scores of Ki Bo Bae, Choi Misun and Chang Hye Jin totaled a combined 2045 points at the third stage of the 2016 Hyundai Archery World Cup to beat the recurve women’s team ranking round world record by seven points, from 2038.

Korea held the previous record – and has held it since before the start of the World Cup era, when the Korean Olympic team at Athens 2004 scored 2030.

Choi Misun equalled the individual world record – 686 – in Antalya, too. It was the same score, shot by Korean Ku Bonchan, that lead the men’s event at the third Hyundai Archery World Cup stage of the year.

It is the second time in 2016 that Olympic Champion (and Choi’s teammate) Ki Bo Bae’s world-leading mark has been matched. Deepika Kumari also scored 686 at World Cup stage one in Shanghai, China.

Every current recurve world record was set with Easton’s X10 arrow, which has also won every Olympic title since its introduction at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta.

To see the full lineup of Easton Target arrows, visit Easton’s website.

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MEDELLIN, Colombia – Hope springs eternal in the city of the eternal spring for USA as the archers dominated final after final. Making two team podiums yesterday and qualifying five athletes for the World Cup Final, the untouchable compound squad took to the field to shoot in every event.

Recurve Saturday opened with the women’s team down behind Mexico, but USA brought it back to a shoot off and won. This morning again, USA women, Paige Pearce (Red Bluff, California), Lexi Keller (Omro, Wisconsin), and Danielle Reynolds (Gilbert, Arizona) trailed behind Mexico by 4 points, which they made up in the third end with a near-perfect 59 and went again to shoot off. With three strong shots, USA repeated yesterday and took the bronze win to start the day.

The world record holding team (239 out of 240), Braden Gellenthien (Hudson, Massachusetts), Reo Wilde (Pocatello, Idaho) and Steve Anderson (Salt Lake City, Utah), have not missed a World Cup podium in 2015. At this final stage of the event, they were not to be slighted.

Shooting against historic rivals from Italy, the match began very tight, tied with 58s after one end, and then matching arrow for arrow. Things changed when Italy’s Sergio Pagni faltered and dropped an 8. With the final 6 arrows to go, USA had a five-point lead. The powerhouse trio increased the lead to 7 points to take the gold win 234-227.

“We had a pretty good season as a team,” Wilde told World Archery. “We had new people on the team so it’s good to walk away, get a lot of experience and finish on top.”

“It’s really fun to shoot team rounds with Reo and Steve because I have total confidence that they’ll perform,” Gellenthien added. “When I’m out there I’m able to relax. Even when I’m in the lead position and there’s a little bit of pressure to start the match, I know that even if I shoot a nine they are going to back me up.”

Wilde took the field again with Keller for mixed team bronze. The experienced 41 year-old and 19 year-old Keller continued their consistent dominance on the field, opening with a perfect 40. India dropped a 7 at the start of the second end and Keller and Wilde closed in for an easy win by a wide margin.

In an intense match, Pearce, who has made quite a name for herself on the junior circuit took on World No. 1 ranked Sara Lopez on her home turf. Lopez had a loud fan section behind her, filled with friends and family, and with five individual podiums to her name in the Archery World Cups and multiple world records, there was great pressure on the match.

Pearce had a slow start with a 27 in the first end, but finished strong, including a 30 in the third end to give Lopez a run for her money. Just three points down in the final tally, Pearce took the silver and her first individual podium finish in the Archery World Cup series.

Wilde took to the field for a third time, shooting for individual bronze in a highly anticipated match with Denmark’s Stephan Hansen billed by World Archery as: “Experience v Generation X. One of the most decorated compound archers in the world, the current 15-arrow match world record holder at 150 12X and six-time (including 2015) Archery World Cup Finalist versus the new, 20-year-old World Archery Champion.”

Wilde showed Hansen how the pros do it-shooting only a single 9 in the third end, Wilde posted a 149 to keep the win out of reach for the young archer. Taking his third medal of the day, Wilde claimed the bronze and secured the U.S. a spot on every podium of the day.

See video of the matches and complete scores from the event here. For more, follow USA Archery on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

About USA Archery

USA Archery is the National Governing Body for the Olympic sport of archery in the United States. USA Archery selects and trains Olympic, Paralympic, World Championship, and World Cup teams, as well as developing archery at the grassroots level across the United States.  For more information, visit http://www.usarchery.org.

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Supporting the growth of archery is on the mind of Inside Archery Publisher Sherry Krenz. Krenz recently visit Lausanne, Switzerland, home to World Archery and the International Olympic Committee. Krenz was in Europe visiting her sister, Deb Lechner who lives in Vienna, Austria, and works as curriculum director for the American International School which offers a university preparatory education in the American day-school style for children of all nationalities. As Krenz planned for her departure to Austria, she also booked an additional side-trip to Switzerland for a chance to see how archery is expanding on an international scale. She contacted Denise Parker, CEO of USA Archery, to learn more about World Archery and its operations. She also called Jay McAninch, CEO/president of the Archery Trade Association, to hear how the ATA works with World Archery to grow archery globally. McAninch helped Krenz arrange a meeting for her and Deb with Tom Dielen, World Archery’s secretary general and executive director; and Chris Wells, the organization’s communications manager, and tour the organization’s offices and IOC grounds.

World Archery works to get archery recognized as an important Olympic and recreational sport, while working with groups like the ATA. ATA has the resources and experience to unite archery with communities across the country. At the 2015 ATA Trade Show, Dielen and McAninch hosted a session with industry members to acquaint them with international archery activities and their challenges. Dielen, McAninch and ATA staff also plan to team up in July at the World Archery Congress in Copenhagen to meet with archery federation leaders from around the world. Their task: advising these leaders how to engage with casual archery fans and boost participation.

For more on World Archery, check out the July issue of Inside Archery or download the free Inside Archery app from the iTunes, Google Play or Amazon store.

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The 10^th annual Archery World Cup is officially underway. Archers from across the world are now in Shanghai for the first stage of the international competition. From China, shooters will travel to Antalya, Turkey; Wroclaw, Poland; Medellin, Colombia; and end in Mexico City, Mexico, for the Archery World Cup Final.

“There is a real sense of excitement building ahead of this year’s Archery World Cup season,” World Archery President Ugur Erdener said. “Every year brings something unique, but this year is particularly special as it is the 10^th anniversary of the Archery World Cup, a project we began in 2006 as part of our first Archery World Plan. That strategy, which aimed to make archery an important Olympic sport, was a success.”

The Archery World Cup was launched in 2006 to give archers an international platform for competition, and participation has grown each year.

The international setting will take on added significance in Copenhagen; the World Archery Championships held there in July act as the main qualifying event for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio. There are already 647 preliminary entries representing 94 nations.

For more information on World Archery or the Archery World Cup, visit worldarchery.org.

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