TOKYO, Japan – The leadup to the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games has seen three-time Olympian Brady Ellison in the best shape of his career. Finally healthy, finishing on three world cup podiums this year, including two gold finishes, winning the World Championships and earning the World No. 1 rank, Ellison is on fire. The Olympic Champion title is the last major accomplishment evading Ellison’s impressive resume, and possibly the biggest.
The Ready, Steady Tokyo Test Event is a preview of what is to come next summer. Yumenoshima Park will host the 2020 Olympic and Paralympic Games – and unlike the last two Games, which were contested in iconic venues of the host nation, this is a new and modern facility that will leave a legacy as a permanent archery range. The Test Event is a dress rehearsal that allows archers to compete in a preliminary version of the venues.
Ellison battled a rainy qualification to rank second with a 677, just two points behind Korea’s Kim Woojin. Then, like the Games, all individual elimination matches were shot one at a time on the big stage. With no room for error, Ellison was lights out, breezing through his first few matches. Until the semifinals, Ellison never put an arrow outside of the gold; scores of 29, 29, 30, 30 gave him a 7-1 1/8thround win and he pulled off a strong 6-2 quarterfinal win after that.
Korea’s Lee Seungyun posed a challenge in the semifinals. Ellison took a 2-0 lead, but Seungyun’s three consecutive sets of perfect scores brought the match to 5-3. The two split the final set with 28s, but the set point gave Seungyun the win. Ellison then shot against the Netherland’s Sjef Van Den Berg for bronze – a rematch of his individual final from the Rio 2016 Games. The match went in Ellison’s favor again, as it has all six times the two have gone head to head in international matches, with an exciting back and forth before he clinched the 6-4 victory, finishing with a perfect 30.
Ellison gave his first impressions of the venue to World Archery: “I think it’s going to be pretty protected but I think it’s going to be hard to read the wind. All week it’s been a headwind. With the big back wall behind the targets, you don’t see it on the flags on the targets until it comes from the side and is a true sidewind. So we’re going to have to rely a lot on feeling and then the flags on each side of the field. Overall, I think we’re going to be able to shoot some big scores on here.”
He added: “I think you do gain a certain amount of advantage just with familiarity. You’ve been there, you know kind of what to expect. Everything that we learn with the wind we can bring into next year. I’m excited because I think Japan has a big archery history to it and I think the fans here are going to understand and want to come watch us compete. I hope it’s loud; I want it to be so loud next year.”
Complete results from the event are available at www.worldarchery.org. Photos by World Archery.
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