Three Americans reached individual finals as the knockout rounds progressed on Thursday at the Archery World Cup in Medellin, Colombia and the US also got a pair into a mixed team final. The US qualified one finalist in each of the individual competitions except for the women’s recurve. There was only one American left, #43 Lauren Clamon and she lost her opening match of the day to #11 Hui Cao of China 7-3.
#2 Brady Ellison is the banner carrier for the US men in the recurve competition after advancing to the gold medal final. Ellison won his first two matches 7-1 before a hotly contested quarterfinal matchup with fellow American #7 Jake Kaminski. Ellison won 6-4 to set up a big time showdown in the semifinals with #3 Bonchan Ku of Korea. The matchup was as tight as expected with Ellison needing a tiebreaker upset to defeat Ku 6-5. Ellison will face #9 Miguel Alvarino Garcia of Spain in the final on Sunday. #29 Colin Klimitchek advanced twice on 6-2 wins, including one over #4 Seungyun Lee of Korea, before being eliminated by #5 Hideki Kikuchi of Japan 6-4 in the quarterfinals.
Ellison and Erin Mickelberry needed a tiebreaker to advance 5-4 in the first round over Cuba and were shutout 6-0 by #1 seed Korea in the quarterfinals of the mixed recurve event. Things went a little better in the mixed compound competition where the #1 seeded pair of Crystal Gauvin and Alex Wifler won 155-150 to reach the semifinals where they nearly took out the #4 Italian team but were defeated on a tiebreaker after scoring 154-154. They will face #7 France for Bronze on Saturday.
Gauvin will be busy on Saturday as she’ll also be competing for the gold in the individual compound final. #2 Gauvin wasn’t pushed until the quarterfinals where she pulled out a 140-138 win over #10 Alejandra Usquiano of Colombia. It was even tighter when she faced #3 Sarah Sonnichsen of Denmark in the semifinals but she posted the highest score by anyone in the knockout rounds and reached the final after a narrow 147-146 win. Gauvin took out fellow American Emily Bee in the second round 145-141 while in opening round matches Dhalia Crook lost to Irene Franchini of Italy 142-140 and Lexi Keller lost to #8 Toja Cerne of Slovenia 144-141. Gauvin’s opponent in the final will be #1 Sara Lopez of Colombia.
On the men’s side it was a change of fortune from the qualifying as lowest seeded American, but #18 overall, Reo Wilde went on a run to the gold medal final. Wilde pulled upsets by seed in every round to reach the final. In the round of 16 that was a tiebreak winning 147-147 match against #2 Stephan Hansen of Denmark. The exact same thing with the exact same score happened in the quarterfinals, but this time the victim was #7 seed and fellow American Steve Anderson. In the semifinals Wilde rose up to a 148 and won 148-147 over #3 Mike Schloesser of the Netherlands. The top American qualifiers had some disappointment in their matches. #6 Braden Gellenthien suffered an upset when he lost 146-145 to Delobelle Fabien of France and #1 Wifler was knocked out in the round of 16 by #16 Sergio Pagni of Italy on a tiebreaker after a 148-148 match. Pagni will face Wilde in the final.
Friday is the last day of non-finals as the men’s and women’s team events narrow down to the finalists.
Previous Archery World Cup Coverage:
Medellin Preview
Wednesday Recap
