Archers from across the Americas hit the bullseye Sunday morning (5 November) at the Pan American Games Santiago 2023 with the United States, Mexico, and Chile securing men’s Olympic quotas in the recurve discipline, while Brazil and Colombia obtained women’s spots for Paris 2024.
The final day of competition also saw gold medals on offer across recurve mixed team, individual women, and individual men.
Competition got underway with the mixed team event where USA’s Casey Kaufhold and Brady Ellison got off a strong start in the gold medal match with Brazil’s Ana Machado and Marcus D’Almeida, earning a perfect score of 40 to take two points in the opening set.
The Americans held their nerve in the final set delivering three 10s and one nine to win the gold and secure a Paris 2024 quota.
Mexico claimed the mixed team bronze.
In the individual women’s competition, the final was a lopsided affair with Mexico’s Alejandra Valencia winning three sets outright and sharing a fourth for a 7-1 victory over Machado. Kaufhold finished with the bronze.
22-year-old Jackson Mirich of the United States stayed calm in a tight final set where he escaped a 4-all tie by delivering a perfect 30 score. He won the gold, defeating Matias Grande of Mexico.
“It feels very good. I mean, I’m very happy with how I performed and everyone shot good, so I’m happy that I was able to compete with them,” Mirich told Olympics.com. “It means a lot to me. I mean, I’ve been preparing the lot for this tournament for the past two months.”
A small but devoted home audience delighted in Chile’s Ricardo Soto’s bronze medal match win over Ellison.
Source: Olympics
