Yankton hosted one more world championship, the World Field Archery Championships. From October 3-9, 42 archers from Canada, Mexico and the United States competed in recurve, compound and barebow in South Dakota, USA.
Americans Brady Ellison recurve men, Dave Cousins compound men, Paige Pearce compound women and Lilie Aguilar compound women U21 ranked first in their category after the two days of qualifying.
Teams
For the first time in a world field championship, mixed team competitions were added. Dave Cousins and Page Pearce took the gold in compound mixed team 92-86 against Germany. In the recurve mixed team, Brady Ellison and Savannah Vanderwier took bronze by defeating the Great Britain team 76-72.
In the men’s team competitions, the U.S. team consisting of Dave Cousins, Brady Ellison and Matt Yacca took the bronze medal by winning the match against Great Britain 58-52.
Individual competition
In compound men, Dave Cousins won his third world title by defeating Nico Wiener of Austria 65-62. “It’s a really long path to get to the final for one of these. This is a process for us that started back in May with the team trials, then all summer thinking about this and physically working and from a technical aspect,” said Cousins.
Paige Pearce won her second consecutive compound women’s title by winning her match in a tiebreaker against Toja Ellison. After the fourth target, both archers had 70 points. Both Pearce and Ellison’s tiebreaker arrow landed on 6, but the closest was Pearce’s who took the gold medal. “Field is my favorite part of archery. This title means more to me than any of them,” said Pearce.
In compound men’s U21, Dustin Watson of Canada also won the world title with a shoot-off arrow. Both Watson and Tim Jevsnik of Slovenia had 66 points after the fourth target. Both tie-breaking arrows hit on 5, but Watson’s arrow was closer to the center to win the gold medal match.
In compound women’s U21, Lilie Aguilar (USA) took first place. She won her match against Albu Andreea of Romania 64-62.
In the recurve men’s semifinals, Brady Ellison and Matthew Nofel (USA) faced each other. Nofel won the match 65-59. In the gold medal final, Nofel faced World Games champion Florian Unruh of Germany. With a three-point difference, Unruh won the match 57-54. Matthew Nofel took the silver medal.
In the bronze medal match, Ellison faced Patrick Huston of Great Britain. Huston won the bronze 60-57.
Fawn Girard (USA) faced Masaki Megumi (Japan) in the bronze medal match of the barebow women. Masaki took the medal, winning the match 41-37.
In U21 barebow women, Rubie Chambers won the match against Elena Topliceanu of Romania to take first place by a one-point difference 32-31.