ANTALYA, Turkey - Brady Ellison (Globe, Arizona) and Jean Charles Valladont of France, ranked 5th and 3rd in the world, and 1st and 2nd at this event, two Rio Olympic medalists went head to head for gold at the Archery World Cup today in a highly-anticipated match as the two have not competed against each other on this stage in several years.
World Archery shared: "There's not many archers on the planet you could see beating Brady in target competition right now, but Valladont is one of the handful of them."
The two each opened the first two sets with 19s for the first two arrows, but Valladont ended each with a 10 to Ellison's 9s to take an early 4-0 lead.
After a 4-0 defecit in his semifinal match earlier this week, Ellison commented to World Archery: "I never think it's over until it's 6-0. I never get really too worried, and a 4-0 never scares me; 5-1 is a little iffy, because you can shoot a 30 and still lose, but 4-0? Nah. Doesn't make you pucker too much!"
Ellison had added: "I don't look forward to winning that gold medal match. Now it's the experience. I like being on the podium, in the top four. When I was younger it was more like 'if you're not first, you're last'. As I get older it's less about getting to every single podium. Now I'm thinking my career is about getting on TV. If I can get on TV, in a TV match, getting my brand out there, I've done my job."
Ellison opened the third set with an 8, which Valladont matched with an 8 of his own, but Ellison then came back to take the set for a 4-2 scoreboard, still in Valladont's favor. Then with a 29 to Ellison's 27 the match came to a close as Valladont clinched the gold win leaving Ellison with the silver.
Ellison and Anna Miscione (Ramona, California), who is a student-athlete on the James Madison University archery team and part of USA Archery's Collegiate Archery Program, also shot the mixed team bronze final against Spain.
Miscione opened the match with a 7 but came back with a 10, clearly building confidence and earning fist bumps from teammate Ellison. Spain took the first set with stronger scores, but the U.S. duo opened the second set with two perfect 10s to put on the pressure. It worked, and USA took the second set to bring the match to 2-2. Spain continued to edge out the U.S. 6-2 for the medal win.
Up next on the circuit, the Archery World Cup follows the U.S. home to Salt Lake City, Utah for the June 20-26 event. Complete results from today's matches can be found here. For more, follow USA Archery on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Some information attributed to World Archery. Photo by World Archery.
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