The last stage of the 2021 Hyundai Archery World Cup stage in Paris finished in the afternoon of Sunday, June 27 after the recurve individual finals.
Archers from Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, US Virgin Islands, Mexico, Puerto Rico and the USA were among the 43 nations that took part.
At a key event to secure a place at the 2021 Hyundai Archery World Cup Final, Colombia’s five-time circuit champion Sara Lopez had to beat teammate Alejandra Usquiano in the compound women’s gold medal match to ensure her ticket.
She succeeded with an impressive score of 149 to 148, locking her seventh Final appearance.
“I’m happy on one hand but, on the other, I’m also very sad because I won against one of my teammates,” Lopez said. “We wanted a shoot-off. We’ve been showing the best matches here so far, so it was a very strong performance from both of us. I’m going to represent her with all of my heart at the Finals in the United States.”
Sara’s collection of World Cup trophies is only equaled by one other – Brady Ellison.
After winning the Lausanne stage in May, Ellison returned to the finals arena to face teammate Jack Williams in Paris. Brady beat his compatriot, 6-2, to finish atop the podium at the last major event before the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, for which the USA men’s squad secured a full team quota place earlier in the week in the French capital.
“This one feels really good. I’ve really taken every arrow since then in practice and got some things lined out and felt like I shot pretty good today, scored well, so that’s good. Now I have two weeks until we leave for the Olympics. I’ve shot a tournament every single weekend since the first week in April. It’s awesome to end this stretch and then head to the Games in a couple of weeks,” said Ellison.
Paris was a successful event for the USA, the country winning one gold, three silvers and one bronze medal.
The latter was courtesy Mackenzie Brown’s third in the recurve women’s competition. In the compound events, Kris Schaff was second after losing the final to Indian archer Abhishek Verma in a shoot-off, while the men’s team suffered the same fate to Denmark.
After securing a full quota place for Tokyo 2020, Mexicans Alejandra Valencia, Aida Roman and Ana Vazquez won silver in the recurve women’s team event, losing to India in the final, 5-1.
The trio medaled at each of the three stages of this year‘s Hyundai Archery World Cup and have high hopes for the upcoming Games.
Colombia also secured the compound women’s team and mixed team golds.
With the conclusion of Paris, the World Cup rankings are also updated.
The Americas will be represented by Kris Schaff, Braden Gellenthien, Nora Valdez, Sara Lopez, Paige Pearce, Andrea Becerra, Brady Ellison, Nicholas D’Amour and Mackenzie Brown at the Hyundai Archery World Cup Final. Three more places from the USA are yet to be defined.
The results of the Americas in Paris are as follows:
Recurve
- Gold – Brady Ellison – Individual
- Silver – Jack Williams – Individual
- Silver – Mexico – Women’s team
- Bronze – Mackenzie Brown – Individual
- Bronze –México – Mixed team
Compound
- Gold – Sara Lopez – Individual
- Gold – Colombia – Women’s team
- Silver – Alejandra Usquiano – Individual
- Silver – Kris Schaff – Individual
- Silver – Colombia – Mixed team
- Silver – Estados Unidos – Men’s team
For full results visit World Archery’s website.