YANKTON, South Dakota – Shooting in front of a huge crowd of fans at a home-field World Archery Championships, Team USA put on a show with some outstanding shooting. A faux Mount Rushmore set the stage behind the targets, inspiring American patriotism as the compound teams returned to glory in today’s headlines.
Team USA’s compound men, Braden Gellenthien, James Lutz and Kris Schaff absolutely crushed a gold finish 226-211 over Mexico from an early lead that built stronger through each end. “It feels amazing to be able to put on a show for the home crowd and bring the men’s championship back where it belongs,” commented Gellenthien. This marks the USA’s 8th world title in this event, and Gellenthien has been on 7 of those squads. Schaff has been on 2 of the winning teams and celebrated today’s win with his family on his birthday!
Although Team USA dominated their final match, the scores were lower than what they typically put on the board; “we were prepared for the wind; we weren’t prepared for the sun,” commented Lutz. “That gave us the most issues, it was tough to see it out see out there. It was pretty difficult, but we managed to do it.”
The USA compound women, who finished with silver at the 2019 edition, had a last-minute lineup change for this event, as Paige Pearce and Linda Ochoa-Anderson welcomed Makenna Proctor to the team fresh off a bronze finish at the World Archery Youth Championships. Shooting for bronze against France, Team USA opened down 57-58, but they responded with a perfect 60 and never looked back, building a lead to win 229-222.
"We shot incredibly well in the bronze medal match despite windy conditions! We communicated well as a team, and leaned on one another through the pressure!" shared Pearce.
Olympians Brady Ellison and Jack Williams were joined by Matthew Nofel in his senior team event debut in the recurve men’s team gold final against the 2020 Olympic Champions from Korea. It was Williams who had the most standout performance, but Korea was on point and swept the match 6-0, up just one point on each of the first two sets.
Ellison and Casey Kaufhold take the stage Sunday for the individual matches from the quarterfinals through medal matches. Matches will be broadcast live (learn how to watch). Complete results from the competition are available at www.worldarchery.org. Photos are courtesy of World Archery.
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