ANTALYA, Turkey – It was another hugely impressive day for the USA at the Archery World Cup Stage 1 as both the men and women fought through to the gold medal match in the compound team category.
Following on from their world record-setting performance on Tuesday, the men – consisting of Sawyer Sullivan, James Lutz and Braden Gellenthien – defeated Norway, the Netherlands and El Salvador to set up a gold medal meeting with second seed Denmark on Saturday.
It could be argued that Madison Cox, Cassidy Cox and Danelle Lutz are worthy of even more plaudits. Having finished eighth in qualification, the USA’s compound women caused the upset of the day with a quarterfinal win over much-fancied top seeds India (233-225). They began the elimination rounds with victory over Kazakhstan, then toppled India, before edging out Chinese Taipei (232-231) to secure their place in the gold medal match, to be played on Saturday against Colombia.
Recurve got underway on Wednesday. Among the highlights was Brady Ellison finishing second in qualification in the men’s division, with a score of 687. He missed top spot by one point, with local favorite Mete Gazoz managing 688.
In the recurve women’s division, Casey Kaufhold finished ninth with a score of 604. Catalina GNoriega was three points back to place 14th. Kaufhold, GNoriega and Jennifer Mucino-Fernandez, with their combined scores, placed seventh in the women’s recurve team event.
Ellison, Jack Williams and Jackson Mirich made up the trio of men in the team category. Their scores were good enough for fifth.
Day three will bring the elimination rounds in both the team event for recurve men and women, as well as for individual compound men and women.
The recurve men’s team faces either Chinese Taipei or Brazil in their first elimination match on Thursday, which will be in the round of eight. The women’s team also starts in the round of eight, meeting Kazakhstan or France first up.
In the compound division, the matches involving USA archers are as follows:
Braden Gellenthien vs. Leonardo Costantino (ITA)
Kris Schaff vs. Alang Ariff Muhammad (MAS)
James Lutz vs. Jean Pizarro (PUR)
Sawyer Sullivan vs. Hendre Verhoef (RSA)
Danelle Lutz vs. Lu-Yun Wang (TPE)
Madison Cox vs. Lea Tonus (LUX)
Cassidy Cox vs. Roxana Yunussova (KAZ)
Makenna Proctor vs. Kaur Avneet (IND)
