COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado – The United States Archery Team, "USAT", consists of the best master, senior, para, junior and cadet archers in the country, selected based on performance in national and USAT series events over a yearlong season that travels the United States.
Making USATis a tremendous accomplishment that reflects countless hours and arrows of practice, travel and competition. Athletes who compete on the USAT event circuit do an amazing balancing act of school, work, family, friends and countless other commitments. It takes a great amount of time, effort and personal sacrifice and the dedication required to reach this level of success is significant.
USA Archery saw another incredible year of record-breaking participation at every national event this year, and many state, national, and world records were shattered as the level of competition in the U.S. continues to soar to new heights.
Beyond the prestige of making the USAT, archers earn the right to wear USA across their backs on a special team jersey, and are provided discounts and products from generous USA Archery Sponsors.
The top athletes on the senior recurve and compound USAT represent the United States on the Archery World Cup circuit and at other major international events. Several new and young faces will compete on the world stage in 2020 including 15-year-old Casey Kaufhold who topped the recurve women’s rankings along with Olympian Mackenzie Brown, Erin Mickelbery and Alex Zuleta-Visser.
Youth Olympic Champion Trenton Cowles also joins an impressive senior recurve squad of Team USA’s World Champion and No. 1 Brady Ellison, Jack Williams and Tom Stanwood. Cowles shared, “This season was my first year competing on the senior stage, and I made it my goal to finish on USA’s World Cup Team. Now on the team I am excited to showcase my commitment and love for the sport on the international fields competing alongside some of the best athletes in the world. As I continue to grow and learn as an individual, student and athlete, I am honored and filled with optimism for the opportunity to compete for my country.”
World No. 1s Alexis Ruiz and Braden Gellenthien will head the compound teams. World silver medalist Paige Pearce, Linda Ochoa-Anderson and youth field and target world medalist Savannah Vandewier topped the women’s National Ranking System and Ochoa-Anderson will make her very welcomed Team USA debut in 2020 as an incredible asset to a strong squad. Matt Sullivan will make another big run at the World Cup podium with the extremely decorated champion Reo Wilde and 2018 circuit champion Kris Schaff.
Emma Rose Ravish, Martha Chavez and Lia Coryell finished on top of the para women’s rankings while World Champions Michael Lukow, Eric Bennett and Timothy Palumbo led the recurve open men. World Champion Ben Thompson finished the year first for the compound open men ahead of Lance Thornton and Paralympic Champion Andre Shelby and Jason Tabansky made the team for the W1 men.
National Champions Claire Xie and John Demmer III led the senior barebow rankings.
As usual, the cadet competition was huge and cutthroat this season. In a World Archery Youth Championships year, where all four USA compound teams won gold, cadets and juniors were at the top of their game and scores were tight. World record holder Faith Miller led the compound cadet women: “Making it on USAT is such an honor, it’s definitely not an easy circuit and everyone who competes through it deserves to be there. For me personally, I loved seeing my progress through this year compared to last year from being 5th to 1st, and I think that’s my biggest take away from this is my growth in this sport, and now I get to represent USA because of it!”
Brianna Laux and World Record holder Joonsuh Oh topped the recurve cadet rankings and made the top 16 for the 2020 U.S. Olympic Trials – Archery while Matthew Russell and Margaret Baus finished the year atop the compound cadet men and barebow women’s rankings respectively.
Josef Scarboro also sits high in the Olympic Trials standings, and after winning mixed team silver at the world youth championships, he topped the recurve junior men’s USAT standings with compound standout Cooper French and barebow men’s leader Nathanael Cartwright. Multiple time world medalist Anna Scarbrough finished on top of the compound junior women while Holland Lintermann and Olivia Artz finished first in the recurve and barebow women’s standings.
Susan Bock and Alanna Dunaway were major standouts in the masters recurve and compound women’s divisions this year, finishing on top of the USAT rankings. Bock shared: “I will simply say that it is an incredible feeling to be able to represent the USA, that the Masters Women are by far the best division in USA Archery because we have way too much fun, and that when it all comes down to it in the end, knowing I went out and did my best and it was good enough, while a good thing, doesn't mean there isn't more to learn and more to achieve. I'll be back next year to try to accomplish that!”
Scott Rissinger and Scott Starnes topped the masters recurve and compound men’s USAT rankings while Ruth Delzell and Rick Stonebraker led the barebow masters divisions.
Headed into an Olympic year, USA Archery is thrilled to see this continued trend of high participation and increasing scores. USA Archery congratulates our archers on another outstanding season, especially those who made the USAT selection. See the full 2020 USAT here.
USA Archery’s High Performance Program Manager Leticia Malavasi at [email protected]
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