Brady Ellison won his first outdoor world champion title as America’s top archers competed in the 2019 Hyundai World Archery Championships June 10-16 in S’Hertogenbosch, Netherlands. This event takes place every two years as athletes also try to secure spots for the 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo.
Individual Men’s Recurve
Ellison earned his long-awaited outdoor title by shooting a perfect arrow during a tiebreaker. Ellison has won more World Cup titles than anyone in history, as well as three Olympic medals, the World Field Champion title, and several world indoor podium finishes.
Ellison beat Malaysia’s Khairul Anuar Mohamad in the finals. The first three sets ended in ties, but then Ellison took the fourth and Mohamad the fifth, sending the match into a shoot-off. Ellison shot first, and landed a perfect arrow. Mohamad’s arrow hit low and left in the 8-ring.
“I’m so excited,” Ellison said in a World Archery article. “I’m really trying to hold it in. I’m trying really hard not to cry.”
Ellison said the victory was the biggest of his career, but he hopes to go even bigger next year by winning his first Olympic gold medal. The victory made Ellison the first U.S. men’s recurve World Archery Champion since Rick McKinney in 1985.
You can view all the recurve highlights from the tournament here.
Individual Men’s Compound
The USA’s James Lutz, meanwhile,became the men’s compound World Champion in just his second international event. The 23-seeded Lutz defeated the world’s top two archers to reach the finals. In the gold-medal match Lutz defeated another World Championship rookie, 36-seeded Norwegian Anders Faugstad, 148-145.
During Lutz’s first international event, the third stage of the Archery World Cup in late May at Antalya, Turkey, he shot a perfect 150-point final. Lutz is the fifth U.S. archer to win the compound men’s world title.
“I wasn’t as nervous as I was in Turkey, just because that was the first time I was ever on a stage like that, but I still had nerves,” Lutz told USA Archery after winning the title.
During the semifinals Lutz defeated fellow American Braden Gellenthien, the most decorated archer in World Cup history and third-ranked archer at the tournament. Korea’s Kim Jongho defeated Gellenthien to win bronze.
Individual Women’s Compound
Paige Pearce of the USA won silver in the individual women’s compound final. Pearce, the reigning world field champion, faced off against Russia’s reigning indoor world champion, Natalia Avdeeva. After a tense back and forth, Aveeda took gold by one arrow, 142-141.
Pearce has won more youth world championship titles than anyone in history. Silver is her highest World Championship finish. She qualified 20thand upset top-ranked Sara Lopez of Colombia on her way to the finals.
Team Women’s Compound
Pearce joined teammates Cassidy Cox and Alexis Ruiz to win silver in the compound women’s team match. The U.S. took on Chinese Taipei and lost an early lead, which led to a 229-224 loss.
“I feel like we performed as a team, but none of us shot how we would have liked,” Pearce told USA Archery. “We were all capable of more, but when you get into a finals venue it’s always such a different experience than a normal competition field. I don’t think there is anything we could have done in that moment to change the outcome of the match. All three of us gave it all, and sometimes that’s all you can do. You win some, and you lose some.”
You can view all the highlights from compound competition here.
Team Men’s Compound
The Korean compound men’s team beat Turkey, 235-233, to take gold. The team, which consists of Kim Jongho, Choi Yonghee and Yang Jaewon, won Korea’s first world title in this category.
The teams were tied at 115 at the halfway point. Korea then shot six perfect 10s in the third end. Turkey’s Muhammed Yetim shot a 9 with his last shot, giving Korea the edge to pull ahead and win.
The USA men were the defending titleholders, but didn’t reach the finals.
Team Men’s Recurve
China defeated India to win the men’s team recurve title for the first time. The team consists of Wei Shaoxuan, Feng Hao and Ding Yiliang.
Team Women’s Recurve
Chinese Taipei defeated top-ranked Korea, a longtime rival, to take gold. This is Chinese Taipei’s first recurve world champion title. Lei Chien-Ying, Tan Ya-Ting and Peng Chai-Mao defeated Korea, 6-2.
Individual Women’s Recurve
In addition to her team gold, Chien-Ying helped Chinese Taipei win its first individual world champion. She upset Kang Chae Young of Korea in a shoot-off to earn the women’s world No. 1 title.
Mixed Recurve
Korea has never lost the recurve mixed team title at the World Championships, and its streak continued when it won its fifth consecutive title. Korea’s Kang Chae Young and Lee Woo Seok defeated the Netherlands’ Gabriela Bayardo and Sjef van den Berg, 6-0.
Olympic Spots
Besides competing for World Championship titles, the archers were also chasing a coveted spot for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games. By winning individual recurve gold, Ellison secured his return to the Olympics. But in a stunning upset, team Kazakhstan outscored Ellison and his USA teammates, Jack Williams and Tom Stanwood. The U.S. team’s recurve women lost in their first-round match.
The World Archery Championships were the first Olympic qualifying tournament; there are 64 spots for men and 64 for women. The U.S. can qualify for more spots at the Pan American and European Games. The top-mixed team and top individual that are not already qualified by another method win places for their country.
