AUBURNDALE, Fla. – For the first time in seven years the USA is hosting a Hyundai Archery World Cup stage, with the sport’s best archers competing in Stage 1, getting underway in central Florida on Tuesday.
This will be the first time since Salt Lake City in 2018 that the USA has hosted a Hyundai Archery World Cup stage. World Cup Stage 3 was hosted by Salt Lake City in 2017 and 2018. Prior to that, the same stage was held in Ogden, Utah from 2010-2012.
Yankton, S.D. was home to the 2021 Archery World Cup Final, where Jack Williams and Brady Ellison took gold and silver in the recurve men’s event, with Braden Gellenthien and Kris Schaff claiming silver and bronze in the compound men.
All 16 of the USA team arrive from the 2025 AAE Arizona Cup, the first USAT Series Qualifier event of the year, which finished on Sunday afternoon. Among those pulling on the red, white and blue will be gold medalists Brady Ellison (recurve) and James Lutz (compound), as well as bronze medalist Jack Williams (recurve).
Ellison is going through something of an adjustment to his game, having lost more than 50 pounds in weight. He said, “My hopes and expectations (for this home World Cup stage) are to try and continue what I’m doing and stay under control.
“I have no score or goals. My goal for the entire year is to build this up, the quicker the better. My aim is to work on this adjustment, to get arrows behind it and get this mastered hopefully by World.”
The Hyundai World Archery Championships take place in Korea from September 5-12.
Lutz heads to Florida having enjoyed a perfect run to gold at the 2024 World Cup Final, shooting 45 10s in his three matches in Mexico. He will arrive in form, following success in the testing conditions faced in Phoenix.
“I know my equipment’s working,” he commented after winning in Arizona. “My shots felt great today, and yesterday in the wind. Hopefully we don’t have anything like that in Florida but today was great. I felt comfortable, so I’m ready to go.”
The USA team will include eight men and eight women, split evenly in recurve and compound. Three archers have made the World Cup team for the first time, Curtis Broadnax, Christian Stoddard and Abigail Winterton. Another, Alex Zuleta-Visser, made the team in 2020, but the global Covid pandemic prevented her from being able to attend World Cup events.
This will be the first World Cup event for the USA since Elias Cuesta took over as the new National Head Coach. The Spaniard was working with the World Cup team during a camp at Chula Vista, Calif last month.
Casey Kaufhold said, “It was great to get familiar with him. With a new coach coming in, that’s a whole experience to get adjusted.
“Everybody has a little bit of a difference coaching style, a different perspective, and so to have the team go to Chula Vista and have that experience working with him was great and so I’m super excited to see what he does for this team, and I definitely have very high hopes moving forward, working with him.”
You can watch the compound and recurve finals on April 12 and 13 through Archery+. All the latest scores and results can be found here.
|
CURTIS BROADNAX |
Compound Men |
|
TRENTON COWLES |
Recurve Men |
|
OLIVIA DEAN |
Compound Women |
|
BRADY ELLISON |
Recurve Men |
|
CATALINA GNORIEGA |
Recurve Women |
|
CASEY KAUFHOLD |
Recurve Women |
|
CARSON KRAHE |
Compound Women |
|
JAMES LUTZ |
Compound Men |
|
JENNIFER MUCINO-FERNANDEZ |
Recurve Women |
|
ALEXIS RUIZ |
Compound Women |
|
KRIS SCHAFF |
Compound Men |
|
CHRISTIAN STODDARD |
Recurve Men |
|
SAWYER SULLIVAN |
Compound Men |
|
JACK WILLIAMS |
Recurve Men |
|
ABIGAIL WINTERTON |
Compound Women |
|
ALEX ZULETA-VISSER |
Recurve Women |
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