NIMES, France - U.S. archers had strong performances at the third stage of the Indoor World Cup. USA was on top with nine compound men in the top 32 cut, an impressive squad of youth archers, and several medal wins.
Jesse Broadwater (Ellenton, Florida) and Braden Gellenthien (Hudson, Massachusetts) shot 599 and 598 out of 600 in qualification to lock up the first and second seeds. The bracket saw interesting upsets and unfortunate exits for U.S. archers: Reo Wilde (Pocatello, Idaho) who won gold in Bangkok last month, was surprisingly eliminated in the first round after firing a miss, and a head to head U.S. matchup saw Broadwater eliminate Steve Anderson (Salt Lake City, Utah) in the second round 150-149.
Broadwater and Gellenthien remained valiant through a tough bracket and close matches, barely dropping any arrows out of the 10 ring. Broadwater, who was poised to meet his teammate in the gold final, had his lowest scoring match of the competition in the semifinals, finishing with a 146 to the Netherland's Mike Schloesser's 149 to move to the bronze match, which he won with a narrow margin over Italy's Sergio Pagni 147-148.
Gellenthien continued his win streak, taking on Schloesser who dropped a 145, giving Gellenthien a clear shot at the gold.
Brady Ellison (Globe, Arizona) who took gold in Bangkok recently came back hungry for more. Ellison qualified first and posted high scores throughout eliminations, including shooting straight sets of perfect 30s in the 1/8th and quarterfinal matches. A 148 out of 150 points in a five-set semifinal match against Luca Melotto of Italy forced a shoot off. While Ellison and Melotto matched with 10s, Melotto's was closer to the center and he took the win.
Ellison advanced to the bronze final, where he easily took the first two sets over the Netherland's Rick Van Den Oever. They split the third with 10-10-10s and before Ellison came back to sweep the fourth set and clinch the medal win.
Award-winning coach of the year, George Ryals IV (Monroe, Georgia) took an impressive squad of JOAD to Nimes as well to compete in the junior divisions. Kolby Hanley (Cambridge, Vermont) and Caroline McCracken (Midlothian, Virginia) both finished fourth in the compound divisions, while five of Kolby's compound junior men teammates also made the top 32 cut for eliminations and Carmen Colston qualified well as the sole recurve junior woman entrant for the U.S.
Complete results from this weekend's competition, including a video stream of the finals matches, can be found here. For more, follow USA Archery on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
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